Valerie Bertinelli Talks Marrying Van Halen & Dating Spielberg

Cute little Valerie Bertinelli was a mere 15-years-old when she burst on the scene in "One Day At A Time." Who knew, back then, that the now-47-year-old had so much action ahead of her?

Best known as squeaky-clean Barbara Jean on the TV show, Valerie is now clearing the air by making some candid confessions about her past.

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"I kissed another woman, she kissed me, but it didn't go beyond that," Valerie admitted to Access Hollywood. "I guess you do a lot of experimenting in, you know, your 20s and I experimented with a bunch of different stuff."

Among Valerie's experiments was a romance with Steve Spielberg in 1979.

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"He's very romantic," Valerie said. "I only dated him for three months though, I mean, I thought he was a hell of a good-looking guy."

But the now-iconic director had one major flaw.

"I was making dinner for him one evening and I was getting ready to chop up the garlic and he saw it, and he said, 'No! No! No, garlic,' and I went 'Really? OK,' and in my head I'm thinking, 'Well I can't be with someone that can't eat garlic.'"

In 1981, just eight months after meeting rock star Eddie Van Halen, 20-year-old Bertinelli and 26-year-old Van Halen spoke to a priest about their impending marriage.

"He [gave] us these questionnaires to fill out and, you know, in our state, at that point, we had little vials of cocaine as we were filling it out," she revealed. "I wasn't even aware then obviously, because I was doing coke, but I think back and I think, 'Those are two people that [shouldn't] be making decisions about the rest of their lives.'"

Valerie and Van Halen had one son together and were married for 20 years.

In 2001, after years of unhappiness, the couple separated and Valerie says in her book, "Losing It," that was when her weight gain began, which cost her a role on "Friends."

"When 'Friends' called, I just couldn't see myself doing it," Valerie said. "I thought, 'No, I can't stand next to those three beautiful women, I'll just look like a tub of lard.'"

Now slim and happy, it wasn't just the 40-pounds that Valerie was happy to lose.

"Everything that you carry - it's not just weight, it's a heaviness on your soul that I just wanted to get rid of," she said.