Valerie Bertinelli is celebrating her body at every age. In a preview of the Friday, Dec. 13 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the 64-year-old star opened up about the response she received after posting a viral selfie on Instagram in just her underwear.
Asked why she posted the selfie, the Food Network alum responded, “Well, you know what, I have been coming to terms with my body now, aging, and I saw myself in the light and I went, ‘Oh I’m not mad at that.’” She then stood to lift up her sweater and reveal her stomach to the applause of host Drew Barrymore, 49.
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“Like all those, you know, planks and sit-ups I’ve done, you can see underneath the saggy skin,” Bertinelli joked. “But I have to say … it’s 64 years of gravity. It’s science. If you focus in on that picture, you’re gonna see the little saggies and I’m proud of them because I’m 64. It’s a belly.”
At every stage of life and every weight, Bertinelli said she’s faced criticism about her appearance. “Why, why, why?” she asked. “And there’s so many people, ‘You’re too thin, you’re too fat, you’re out of shape. You’re in shape. Oh my God. I want those abs. Oh my God, you’re ugly.’”
She continued, “I don’t like that I was part of that manipulation of our brains of we have to look a certain way. We have to be a certain weight,” asking, “I’m a size 10. How is that too thin? I’m a size 10. How is that too fat? I’m just me. It’s my body.”
Bertinelli first posted her viral underwear selfie on Dec. 3, captioning the photo, “At some point, I will talk about the madness my body has been through this year. 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 followed up the post with another message to people who criticized her photo. “To all of you that would sit in judgment of my body, the photo, and my reason for posting it, I hope you find a place in your heart to not judge yourself as harshly as you judge others,” she wrote on Instagram. “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.”
After “almost 3 years of emotional labor,” Bertinelli said that “for the first time in my life, I love my body as it is.” She wrote, “It’s not the 20-year-old body that I hated and it is a shame that I hated that beautiful body. 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,” concluding, “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.”
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