Valerie Bertinelli may have kept her boyfriend’s identity under wraps for one month, but Mike Goodnough is stepping into the spotlight.
The actress’ new partner revealed himself in a Substack essay in April 2024.
Bertinelli first mentioned the “special man” in her life during a March 2024 interview with USA Today, more than one year after finalizing her divorce from Tom Vitale.
The “One Day at a Time” alum, who was also married to Eddie Van Halen from 1981 to 2007, later teased that her beau was an East Coast-based writer.
She told People that she met the mystery man on Instagram and has since fallen “in love” with him.
Now that Goodnough has shared his side of their story, get to know Bertinello’s boyfriend below.
He is a writer
Goodnough has a large online following — 25,500 Instagram followers and 412,600 X followers as of April 2024 — under the name “The Hoarse Whisperer.”
The self-proclaimed “late-starting writer” pens essays for his Substack subscribers about traveling, parenting and more.
When Bertinelli referred to her boyfriend as a writer based on the East Coast, he tweeted that he was “on the East Coast writing.”
He is a father
Goodnough is a dad and often writes about his son on Substack.
“As a parent, I’m pretty much just guessing,” he admitted in November 2023. “There really is no other way to put it. I’m guessing.
“My approach to raising my son, how I handle things, it’s all just one big guessathon,” Goodnough continued. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I really don’t. I’m just making it up as I go and hoping for the best.”
Goodnough, who has alluded to being an “adult child of [an] alcoholic” via X, added, “I don’t have a model to follow. I don’t know what good looks like.”
Bertinelli is also the parent of one son.
She and Van Halen welcomed son Wolfgang in 1991, and Goodnough has sweetly showed his support for the musician’s career with social media reposts.
He is transparent about his mental health
Goodnough has spoken candidly about his mental health and his apparent ADHD diagnosis on X.
In February 2024, he joked, “My Adderall had absolutely *NO* impact on my ADHD today. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to start actually taking it instead of just putting it in my pocket and then forgetting about it.”
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He quipped that he felt “attack[ed]” by a meme about having “ADHD, high functioning anxiety and perfectionism based procrastination” later that same month.
He dropped hints about his romance
As Bertinelli played coy about her boyfriend’s identity, he was dropping hint after hint on social media.
In March 2024, he posted a video of himself in disguise after Bertinelli’s dating news dropped and said the mystery man “could be anyone really.”
He read the Golden Globe winner’s “lovely new cookbook as one does” the following month and tuned into her “Kelly Clarkson Show” interview “subtle and nonchalant-like.”
Goodnough also told his followers he was “browsing the magazine rack” in April 2024 with Bertinelli’s People cover story front and center in the shot.
He was backstage when the Food Network star spoke about him on “The Drew Barrymore Show” in April 2024, and the duo stepped out of the studio together.
Bertinelli joked that they were “hiding in plain sight.”
