The late rock star's son, Wolfgang, also paid tribute to his late father.
Valerie Bertinelli honored her late ex-husband, Eddie Van Halen, on what would have been his 68th birthday.
On Thursday, Valerie took to Instagram and paid tribute to the late rock star with a sweet post that included two photos of her and their 31-year-old son, Wolfgang Van Halen. In the first photo, Valerie is resting her head on his shoulder as he looks into the camera and smiles. In the second photo, Wolfgang squeezes between them for an adorable family pic.
Valerie simply captioned the post with a white heart emoji, and her fans also poured in with their own tributes in the comments section. One particular follower of Valerie's sweetly wrote, "Happy Birthday Eddie. Thank you for being such a major part of the soundtrack of my life from when I bought my first cassette in '83 (Van Halen II), to my first big stadium concert in Vancouver in '86, up til now and beyond. Still have my Van Halen necklace in a box somewhere that I always wore in high school that I bought after seeing Valerie wearing it on One Day At A Time. I’m sure you’re rockin’ the heavens! 🎸"
Wolfgang also took to Instagram and shared a photo of him and his father sharing a laugh during one of his jam sessions, with Eddie, wearing a black puffer jacket, belting out a huge laugh with his arm around his son.
"Happy 68th Birthday Pop," he captioned the post. "Wish I could give you a big hug and tell it to you in person. I love and miss you more than you could ever know."
Eddie died in 2020 following a long battle with cancer. Valerie and the legendary guitarist began dating in 1980, before getting married eight months later. They welcomed Wolfgang in 1991. Despite their 2007 divorce, Valerie has admitted that the Van Halen co-founder was her soulmate.
She opened up about the emotional relationship and marriage to Eddie in her memoir, Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today. She told ET last January that the process of digging into her past incorporated "a lot of tears" but that it was also "very cathartic."
"I was able to really speak to it and not shove all of the grief down. I am so used to shoving all of my feelings down and not feeling them and using food so I wouldn't have to deal with my feelings," she explained. "And I think it was extremely cathartic. I would advise it to anybody, if you are going through a really strong feeling, write it down. It really, really does help."
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