Valerie Bertinelli says she now looks for the 'red flags' of narcissism in men

Making it clear she's in no rush to get back on the dating scene, Valerie Bertinelli explained this week that she now actively looks for “red flags” when meeting men.

On his “Getting Naked” podcast on Wednesday titled “Know Your Narcissist,” Bertinelli revealed that he didn't even know he was dealing with narcissism in his romantic relationships until a few years ago after seeing it for the first time in a bad political situation.

“I don't want to throw anyone who has been a part of my life under the bus, I want to talk about things that have been challenging and made me question my self-confidence,” the “One Day at a Time” star told his guest Dr. Ramani Durvasula, psychologist and author.

“If we know who we are, Valerie, when someone comes at us the way people talk, we can be strong,” advised the doctor. “The only way a narcissistic relationship works is if we abandon ourselves.”

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Bertinelli agreed with his assessment, admitting that in a narcissistic relationship he had been involved in, “I completely abandoned myself to the point where my family was saying 'Where are you? We need you? Come back to us.'

He said he never felt that way when he was dating her.

“You feel like you're going to make this person happy,” the 66-year-old explained. “You know you can do it. I know I can make them happy. I know if I work hard I can make them happy. I know I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to hurt them, so if they tell me I do these things. I can make it better.”

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When Durvasula commented that it's human to want “intimate relationships,” Bertinelli joked: “I did. I don't want it that much.[ing] that's for now.”

Valerie Bertinelli said she is not interested in dating at the moment. (Leon Bennett/Getty Images)

Durvasula pointed out that “much of what is at the core of narcissism is this insecurity, this vulnerability.”

Bertinelli went so far as to say that known narcissists, however, “seem to be insecure. They are very similar – it's surprising to see someone who is confident in himself,” and Durvasula explained that narcissists are “good at what we call expressing confidence,” in fact knowing everything.

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The doctor also explained that the characteristics of a narcissist include low empathy, arrogance, entitlement, grandiosity and pathological selfishness.

“I have a little joke that's like, 'Okay, somebody should tell me all the types of narcissists out there because I need to know what not to fall for.' I talked to my therapist again. I said, 'Please tell me what the red flags are so I can be on the lookout for them.'

“They can only focus [around] themselves,” he added. “They want a position. Therefore, they want anything that will make them look powerful in the world. They cannot tolerate things like frustration, disappointment, pressure, or anything that does not support that kind of their dreams. They are very driven by power, dominance, control. They should be the top.”

Valerie Bertinelli is pictured with second husband Tom Vitale in 2014. (Rich Polk/Getty Images for St. John)

And those characteristics, he explained, appear as “fraud, unemployment, dismissal, gas burning, anger, silence, competition, make us small so they feel big, betrayed, promising things they don't follow.”

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Presenting his analysis of his previous relationships and that “I can only speak from my experience ​​​​​​and very carefully,” Bertinelli said: “I would never think that that person has those characteristics, but the way he appeared, boy, all the things you said.”

He added that he wants his podcast to help people “not fall into that trap.”

“I have a little joke that's like, 'Okay, someone should tell me all the different types of narcissists out there because I need to know what to fall for.' “I talked to my therapist again. I said please tell me what are the red flags so I can be on my guard.”

Valerie Bertinelli and her then boyfriend Mike Goodnough in 2024. (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)

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He mentioned that in a previous relationship, there was someone who called him names many times, telling him that he was a smoker and that he was harassing them.

“And I was like, 'Well, I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want to do all these things. Please, God, tell me. And it's like, at some point, I said: 'I don't understand why you're with me. Like I can't do anything right,'” she said.

But the doctor explained to him that this person was deceiving him.

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“'You will be loved if you do the things I tell you to do,'” the nurse told him. “That's the twist.”

Bertinelli also suggested that this person had told him that he prioritizes his son, Wolfgang Van Halen, a lot, which Durvasula described as a good example of low empathy, where a partner cannot understand that the relationship with your child is a different kind of love.

Valerie Bertinelli and Eddie Van Halen's late husband in 2001. (Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

He added that when Bertinelli thought he was building rapport with someone by opening up, “you were filling the armory with weapons they would use against you.”

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Bertinelli said that now if he sees any sign of “love bombing,” when people flatter the other person to control them, he can't tell if it's true love or not.

“Because there's a point where like getting love notes or being nice and being talked to – like there's a point where you let someone know how you feel about them, then there's love bombing and so on,” he said.

The doctor replied: “Idealization is not the place to start a relationship. And to all you lovers out there, stop because I'm going to tell you right now, right.”

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Bertinelli also clarified the “absurd” separation he experienced in the relationship.

Valerie Bertinelli and her son Wolfgang Van Halen pose together on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in April 2022. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

“It starts – it's not 'Don't see your family.' This is when you have your family, they will always text and start arguments over texts and calls. And I'm like, 'I can't talk right now,''' she said leaving him feeling like he's not seeing his family because it's upsetting his significant other.

After splitting from her boyfriend of 10 months in late 2024, following her divorce from her second husband in 2022, Bertinelli explained at the Los Angeles Time Festival of Books last weekend that she's “really scared to fall in love now.”

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He continued, “You know, I have two – I'm just scared.”

Bertinelli told Fox News Digital on the panel that he realized the first time he wrote his memoir, “Walking In Vain,” “I didn't give myself enough credit for the strength I already had inside of me. And that I am — that I shouldn't listen to people criticize me.”

The star said that he was “surprised that I was able to learn that. Finally! That I don't need to listen to people who are bad for me. I don't have to put up with unbearable behavior.”

Valerie Bertinelli said she realized while writing her new book that she didn't need to internalize other people's criticism of her. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

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He added to Fox News Digital that when he wrote his 2022 book “Enough is Enough” he thought he had learned that lesson, “but I still put up with intolerable behavior afterward.”

“It wasn't until I really dug down and found the root of my shame and darkness that I made friends with it,” she said. “And I thought, 'Now I'm done. Now I can just say, f— you. That's it, I'm done. I'm out,' you know?”

After divorcing her first husband, Eddie Van Halen, in 2007, she married businessman Tom Vitale in 2010. At the end of their marriage, Bertinelli started calling Vitale a “rapist,” saying he was emotionally abusive, calling her “fat and lazy.

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She also called her official breakup with Vitale “the second best day of my life.”

Bertinelli began dating writer Mike Goodnough in 2024 and claimed to be in a relationship, but by the end of the year, the relationship had ended.

Valerie Bertinelli says she's “really scared to fall in love now.” (Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal)

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Last year, Goodnough said Bertinelli was “playing one-woman tennis thinking there was someone on the other side of the net” after their split, accusing her of falsifying her social media posts about him and “lashing out at her”.

He also accused him of “hostility, dishonesty, and unwanted hand-swiping.”

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“Valerie is at war with her ghosts. I'm just a guy catching bullets. And that's not new,” he added.

After their breakup, Bertinelli said in an Instagram post that he had “irreversibly changed himself for the better” and said he had “disappointed the last good man I met.”