Valerie Bertinelli Shares Excitement for Her Acting Comeback

Valerie Bertinelli is making a comeback. In her first acting role since the end of Hot in Cleveland in 2015, Bertinelli will be costarring with Modern Family‘s Ariel Winter in Hungry. The One Day at a Time star took to Instagram to share her excitement about the project and her return to acting. “I’m just so excited about this show and I can’t wait for you guys to see it,” she said happily. “It’s so good.”

Hungry is an NBC sitcom pilot about a group of friends who belong to a food-issues group supporting each other’s search for love and success. Bertinelli is certain that everyone will find something to relate to in the project. “It speaks to all of us, right now, what we’re going through,” she said. “Fat, thin, whatever! It doesn’t matter. It’s the insecurities that we tell ourselves that aren’t true.”

Demi Lovato was supposed to star in the show, but dropped out of the project earlier this month, just days before it was supposed to start production. Lovato will remain an executive producer alongside their manager Scooter Braun. Lovato left the project as an actor due to a scheduling conflict, sources told Deadline on March 3. Just three days later, Deadline reported that Winter quickly signed on to replace Lovato and that production started this week, with the first table read on Tuesday. NBC is excited about the project, which explains why it wasn’t completely scrapped after Lovato left their on-camera role.

Hungry was written by Suzanne Martin and the legendary James Burrows is directing the pilot. Bertinelli, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Ryan McPartlin, Alex Brightman, and Ashley D. Kelley also star in the pilot. Martin is also executive producing with Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, Scott Manson, and James Shin. It is a Universal Television production.

Lovato’s decision to leave the project was a shock as they had been involved in it for over a year. NBC ordered a pilot back in January 2021. The project was announced shortly after they had a recurring role in the last season of Will & Grace. If they stayed on the show, it would have been their first leading role on TV since Disney’s Sonny with a Chance ended in 2011.