The Moment
Valerie Bertinelli is done pretending that shrinking yourself is a personality trait.
On a recent episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, the 65-year-old actress and former Food Network star fought back tears as she shared a story she says happened nearly 20 years ago: she claims she was fired as the face of a major diet company after gaining weight.
During a game called Memory Bank, where guests share old photos and the stories behind them, Valerie held up a picture of herself in a fitted white dress at her 2012 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. That dress, she said, marked the end of her relationship with the unnamed diet brand.
She explained that she’d become the company’s spokesperson in 2007, publicly documenting a 50-pound weight loss and dropping down to a size 4 – a size she now says was “way too small” and “impossible” to maintain. Eventually, life and stress caught up, her weight crept back, and by the time of the Walk of Fame event, she says she was a size 12.
“I felt so horrified,” she recalled, saying she believes the company let her go because her body no longer matched the fantasy they were selling. Today, she’s a size 10 and, in her words, far more focused on her mental and emotional health than on the number inside her jeans.
Her message to Drew’s audience – and really to all of us – was simple and loud: “It doesn’t matter how much I weigh.”
The Take
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if Valerie Bertinelli at a size 12 isn’t “good enough” for a diet company, that’s not a Valerie problem. That’s a diet company problem.
Valerie’s story hits differently for anyone who lived through the full-contact sport that was diet culture in the late ’90s and 2000s. Remember? Snack bars that tasted like cardboard and ads that made it sound like dropping two dress sizes would magically fix your job, your marriage, and your mood.
What Valerie describes is the dark logic of that era: you’re celebrated when you’re small, discarded when your body acts like a normal human body. Her going from size 4 back to a 12 is not a scandal; it’s biology plus stress plus life. But for brands built on the fantasy of “before” and “after,” any weight gain is treated like a failure – or, apparently, a firing offense.
The wildest part? A size 12 is squarely within the range of the average American woman. In other words, the body she was allegedly punished for is the same body most of their customers are walking around in.
Valerie clearly still feels the sting – you can hear it in her voice – but she’s using that pain to underline a bigger shift a lot of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are making. The vibe now is: keep your contracts, I’ll keep my sanity.
Her story is like watching someone walk out of a bad relationship and finally realize, “Oh, I wasn’t too much. They were too little.” Diet culture wasn’t just selling shakes and point systems; it was selling the idea that our worth rose and fell with the scale. Valerie saying, on national TV, that her weight doesn’t define her is a quiet but powerful rejection of that entire business model.
Also, can we appreciate the symbolism of that white Walk of Fame dress still hanging in her closet and, as she said, fitting “just fine” today – “a little less snug”? The dress didn’t change. The only thing that changed is the story she tells herself while wearing it.
Receipts
Here’s what’s solid and what’s still in the realm of Valerie’s personal account.
Confirmed (from Valerie’s on-air comments and follow-up reporting):
- Valerie Bertinelli appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show in January 2026 and discussed a past experience with a diet company during a Memory Bank segment.
- She said she became a spokesperson for a diet program in 2007 and publicly lost about 50 pounds while working with them.
- She stated she went from a size 4 at her smallest to a size 12 by the time of her 2012 Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.
- She emphasized on the show that her weight has “yo-yoed” throughout her life and that she is currently around a size 10, prioritizing mental and emotional health over size.
- She still owns the white dress she wore at the Walk of Fame event and said it fits her now.
Unverified / Valerie’s Allegation (her account, not independently confirmed):
- Her claim that the diet company fired her specifically because she gained weight.
- The implication that the end of her spokesperson contract was tied to her being around a size 12.
- The identity of the company – she did not name the brand on air, and no official statement from the company has been publicly reported.
Sources: Valerie Bertinelli’s interview on The Drew Barrymore Show (syndicated daytime TV, aired January 2026); a U.S. lifestyle news report summarizing the segment and her quotes, published January 21, 2026.
Backstory (For Casual Readers)
If you know Valerie as “that nice lady from the cooking shows,” here’s the quick rewind. She broke out in the 1970s sitcom One Day at a Time, became a TV staple, and later hosted several Food Network programs, turning herself into comfort-TV royalty. She was married to rock legend Eddie Van Halen, raised a son, and has spent the last decade talking very openly about grief, midlife, and body image.
In the late 2000s, she did what a lot of female celebrities did back then: partnered with a big diet brand, lost weight very publicly, and posed in tiny outfits to prove the plan “worked.” At the time, it was sold as empowerment. In hindsight, it looks a lot more like women’s bodies being turned into billboards – and that’s the machine she’s now calling out.
What’s Next
Will the mystery diet company respond? Hard to say. Since she didn’t name names, there’s no official target to issue a statement, apologize, or clap back. Unless she chooses to identify the brand in a future interview or book, this may remain more of a cultural conversation than a legal or PR showdown.
What does seem likely is that Valerie will keep talking. She’s already been leaning into a more unfiltered, midlife-truth-telling phase – from social media posts about aging and dating to candid discussions of self-worth. This story fits right into that lane.
And honestly, that might be the most powerful outcome: not a headline about which company did what, but a quieter revolution where women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s collectively decide that a dress size is not a performance review.
If brands are smart, they’ll pay attention. Because the customer they once shamed into buying diet shakes is now the one cheering for Valerie on her couch – and rethinking where she spends her money.
Question for you: Do you think public figures like Valerie sharing these stories actually move the needle on how companies treat women’s bodies, or does it just make us more aware of a problem that never really changes?
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