Valerie Bertinelli wrote candidly about painful moments in her life because she believes sharing trauma helps others feel less alone. She sees openness as a responsibility, not self-promotion, and became comfortable adding more material to her memoir rather than cutting it to stay authentic.
Why be ashamed of anything that happened in my life if it can help somebody else not feel alone? If it helps somebody else go, oh wow, that happened to you too?
Yeah.
You know, and also I think people here, everywhere, all around the world just wanna be seen and just wanna be heard and just wanna be acknowledged. And I think when you're given the gift of me being the gift of being able to write about my life and people, some people will find it interesting, that it would be a disservice for me not to. Oh, it sounds so high and mighty. No, it wouldn't be. I just feel like if I can talk about something that hurt me really deeply and badly and that makes someone not feel so alone, that makes it worth not keeping it a secret.
Yeah. Were there times when you were writing it where you're like, ah?
Yeah, I'm not going there.
Did you cut pieces out?
Yeah. Oh, I stopped right— yeah. No, I didn't cut pieces out.
No, I—
in fact, I, I got more comfortable with adding stuff in.
Wow.
