Valerie Bertinelli doesn’t want to play nice when it comes to unsolicited opinions about her body.
At 64, the cookbook author is embracing self-love and shutting down negativity with a powerful message about judgment, resilience, and self-acceptance.
It all started when Valerie posted a mirror selfie showcasing her figure in a two-piece outfit.
Highlights
- Valerie Bertinelli is embracing self-acceptance at 64 and clapped back at critics who “sit in judgment.”
- The actress proudly shared her journey towards self-love with her 1.6M followers on Instagram.
- “Every lump bump wrinkle and saggy part of me just feels acceptance and simple appreciation,” she said.
- The former Food Network star has been open about her body image and previously said she stopped checking her weight.
“At some point I will talk about the madness my body has been through this year,” she wrote in the caption.
Valerie Bertinelli is redefining beauty standards by celebrating her body as it is
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
“But right now every lump bump wrinkle and saggy part of me just feels acceptance and simple appreciation to be standing in front of a mirror in a hotel bathroom in downtown Manhattan ready to color my roots late on a Monday night,” she went on to say.
The Drew Barrymore Show correspondent then posted a follow-up post, touching upon what the road to self-acceptance is like.
“First of all, to those of you who felt a connection to my prior post and identified with what I was talking about, (empowering ourselves to focus on our own self-acceptance and self-love), thank you and thank you for your kindness. I see you. We are in this together,” she began her post.
She then addressed those who “sit in judgment” of her “body” and the photo.
At 64, the cookbook author shut down critics and inspired fans with her empowering journey toward self-acceptance
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
“I hope you find a place in your heart to not judge yourself as harshly as you judge others,” she told her critics.
“I have dealt with judgment my entire life starting from when I was a young girl. It has taken me a long time to realize that my judgment, with patient discernment, is the only judgment that counts,” she continued.
The former Food Network star said it was her “character” that she truly wanted to focus on.
“Am I kind to people? When I’m not kind, what is in my way? Is it my ego or my emotions? Or both? How can I change and grow to be the best version of me today. In this body,” she wrote. “I have no power over someone else’s judgment of me and now I have no interest.”
“Every lump bump wrinkle and saggy part of me just feels acceptance and simple appreciation,” she told her 1.6 million followers on Instagram
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
“Finally. It’s taken me almost 3 years of emotional labor to get to this point mentally and for the first eight months of this year I had physical setbacks,” she went on to say. “I don’t care what you think of my body. I don’t care what you think about my posting about it.”
The One Day at a Time actress acknowledged that her body is no longer the body she “hated” back when she was in her 20s.
“For the first time in my life, I love my body as it is. It’s not the 20 year old body that I hated and it really is a shame that I hated that beautiful body,” she wrote.
After posting her mirror selfie, Valerie shared a follow-up post that directly addressed body-shamers
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
“Yes, it was a very different body than the one I now inhabit, but it hadn’t yet been through the journey I needed to go through. Even as challenging as it’s been and is, I am grateful for this journey and I wouldn’t trade this body for my 20 year old body any day. Ever,” she concluded.
The actress has been candid about her journey with body image over the years and how she stopped allowing the number on a weighing scale to determine her mental well-being.
The former Food Network star has been open about her body image and previously said she stopped checking her weight
Image credits: Valerie Bertinelli
“I stopped weighing myself when I finished writing my book, which was a big thing for me, and I haven’t gotten on a scale since,” she said in an essay written for New Beauty magazine in 2022.
“My clothes still fit; my jeans still zip up,” she continued. “I guess I was afraid that if I didn’t see what number I was and if I wasn’t able to keep an eye on it, that I would balloon up…but that hasn’t happened.”
“When you stop denying yourself of certain things, you somehow, also automatically, start to self-regulate—I’ve found that especially true as I’m trying to take care of my mental and emotional health, as well as the weight,” she added.