The only girl in a house full of boys, Valerie Bertinelli was the third of Andrew and Nancy Bertinelli's five children. The arrival of a little girl after the birth of two boys should have added an extra layer of joy to an already happy occasion, but Bertinelli's birth was overshadowed by overwhelming grief and sadness. According to a 2020 People interview, Bertinelli's 17-month-old brother, Mark, died from accidentally drinking poison not long before she was born. "When I came into the world, my mom was grieving," Bertinelli said, adding that she wasn't told about Mark's death until she was a teenager. Even after the birth of two more children, her parents never brought it up. "The subject was too painful. My parents kept the tragedy locked inside."
Bertinelli said she didn't fully grasp what her parents had suffered until she became a parent herself. By that point, however, she had already internalized their example of keeping feelings bottled up. She told People, "I felt like I had to make everyone happy. It's a big job for a little kid." Maybe too big. Bertinelli would later turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms including drugs, booze, and food. In another touching Instagram post in June 2023, the self-described "perpetual people pleaser" said she's learning to "feel my feelings, even though they can be scary sometimes, and I do my best to get to the other side of them."
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