Unique Nicole/Getty Images
Valerie Bertinelli’s Feelings for Ex Mike Goodnough ‘Run Deep’ Amid Online Drama: ‘She Fell Hard for Him’
Valerie Bertinelli is “focusing on her career and what lies ahead” after her ex-boyfriend Mike Goodnough mentioned her on social media, an insider exclusively tells Closer.
“Valerie’s feelings toward Mike may not be romantic anymore, but they do run deep,” the insider says. “She fell hard for him, and it’s difficult to fully disengage if you’re still invested. Valerie is very smart; she’ll eventually do the right thing.”
Questions swirled online about the former couple on Tuesday, April 1, when Mike, 54, shared a post on Instagram featuring a screenshot of a comment he received on one of his posts that suggested he and Valerie, 64, were sending each other subliminal messages on social media.
“I’ve been receiving messages and replies similar to the one above with increasing frequency over the last two months,” he captioned the post. “The message common to all of them is that Valerie and I appear to be communicating with each other via our Instagram posts and stories. That is not the case. I have never at any time posted something on social media for the purposes of communicating with someone indirectly when I know them personally and have ample ways to reach them directly.”
Mike went on to say he has “never at any time posted something for the purpose of getting a message to someone or getting reaction out of someone.” He said that he has “love” for Valerie and “always will.”
“Our relationship as partners ended. My caring about her did not,” the East Coast-based writer continued in his Instagram post. “Unfortunately, over the past two months, Valerie has been prone to lapsing into a place where she has been playing a one-woman tennis match thinking there is someone on the other side of the net.”
“When in that place, she reads all of my posts, centers herself in them, takes offense over wholly imagined slights, and then lashes out angrily with a ‘response’ to things that were neither to her or or about her,” Mike wrote. “Among people who follow us both, that behavior has created the impression that we are going back-and-forth. We are not.”
Mike told his followers he is “not communicating with Valerie” through his posts and is ”not engaging with the things she posts.”
“While I am disappointed in the array of hostile, dishonest, and uncalled for backhanded swipes she continues to take at me, there is no war between us,” he said. “She just won’t stop shooting. Valerie is in a war with her ghosts. I’m just the guy who catches the bullets. And that isn’t new.”
Mike and Valerie’s break up was first reported by People in November 2024 after 10 months of dating. The One Day at a Time alum opened up about their breakup in an Instagram post on March 3.
“I met the @therealhoarse in person a year ago today and I am irreversibly changed by him for the better. I know I am becoming a much stronger and more benevolent human for having met him and spent time with him,” she wrote at the time.
Though it’s been months since their split, the source tells Closer that there’s “still some lingering feelings there probably on both their parts” for Valerie and Mike.
“Yes, they broke up and said they parted as friends, but Valerie gets in her feelings about what they had and why it ended,” the insider adds.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Closer Weekly does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
