Valerie Bertinelli's Bitter Fallout With The Food Network Explained
Valerie Bertinelli has made no secret of the fact that she's hurt to no longer be part of the Food Network. However, the only thing she's really bitter about are insinuations that it had anything to do with failed negotiations with the network — or that she'd have come to the table with unrealistic expectations.
Bertinelli first addressed her exit from "Kids Baking Championship" in an Instagram video posted on January 20, 2023. She started off by hinting that she'd had a feeling she wasn't returning, and had been putting off finding out if there was any truth to it. Sure enough, though, she'd been let go — and in a post made to X (previously known as Twitter) the following day, she shared that someone had messaged her the news.
Sadly, the reason why Bertinelli had taken to X in the first place was because she felt she needed to defend herself. Shortly after she'd confirmed her exit on Instagram, sources spoke to People, hinting that her exit had come about because she'd asked for too much during negotiations. Bertinelli was quick to call it out on X, and in an additional post, made it very clear that while she had nothing but good things to say about Food Network and the colleagues she'd worked with there, she wasn't about to sit by while unnamed sources lied to the press. "I am a lot of things, but I am not greedy, nor am I a liar," she wrote.
Valerie holds no grudges, but her dismissal was shady
Other than correcting People's sources, Valerie Bertinelli's response to exiting Food Network has been remarkably understanding. In fact, in both her Instagram video and X posts, she's emphasized that she knew it all came down to business. However, that's not to say she's hidden how the dismissal made her feel.
"It really hurt my feelings to know that I'm not going to be asked back to be on 'Kids Baking Championship'," she mused in the Instagram video. She went on to add that her final season had been shot in the midst of her messy divorce from Tom Vitale, and that she wished she'd be able to return so that she could share how much she appreciated the fans and crew. She went on to list the various departments involved in making the show, gushing over everything they put into it, as well as the "Kids Baking Championship" contestants themselves.
Sadness aside, it's clear that Bertinelli is taking the high road and has no hard feelings towards anyone. That's certainly impressive, considering the way she found out about her dismissal. As if finding out via text wasn't tough enough, it wasn't even someone from the network. "LOL I was basically ghosted," she'd shared in her initial X post.
Given that she'd been on the show for 12 seasons, Bertinelli certainly deserved better than that. Nevertheless, she's keeping busy, and at the time of writing, she's promoting her new cook book, "Indulge."