Valerie Bertinelli has candidly responded to a TikTok user who attempted to “shame” her appearance.
The Food Network star recently posted a video of herself to TikTok, which prompted a comment from one follower, who appeared to criticise Bertinelli’s use of Botox. “The Botox looks great,” the commenter wrote.
The comment prompted a video response from Bertinelli, who took the opprotunity to speak candidly about her experience with the cosmetic treatment and question the critic’s decision to “shame” her over her appearance.
“I know you didn’t mean that as a compliment, but let’s talk about it, shall we?” the 63-year-old celebrity chef began her video. Bertinelli went on to admit that she’s tried Botox in the past, but she didn’t like how it looked. “I’m going to try to find a picture of why I hated it,” she said, before showing a photo of her appearance with the injections from six years ago.
“As you can see from that picture, it doesn’t look like me,” she continued. “It sort of, like, changed the shape of my eyebrows. And what I thought it was going to do was help me with my genetically puffy eyes. They’ve always annoyed me. I’ve always wanted those deep-set eyes. Don’t have ‘em. Never going to get ‘em. So, just live with it.”
In the video, Bertinelli then revealed that she also stopped drinking alcohol for the past year in an attempt to improve the appearance of her eyes, but that she “still has puffy eyes”.
She then circled back to the purpose of her post, with the Foot Network star questioning the critic’s decision to shame her appearance.
“This is why I wanted to talk about your comment because you’re trying to shame me, and you’re a woman,” she noted. “Like, what made you go out of your way to try to shame me? And I’m not the first person to try to be shamed on TikTok or Instagram or any place.
“So, we’re women. We have to stick together, okay? Don’t shame somebody if they want to do something, anything, to make themselves feel better as they go out into this insane, flippin’ crazy world, okay?”
The sitcom star proceeded to note that, even though she “couldn’t wait for it to fade,” she has seen other people look “amazing” with Botox.
“I am not one of them, unfortunately, or I would’ve kept doing it,” she continued. “But thankfully, it faded. I couldn’t wait for it to fade.”
Bertinelli also explained why her skin had looked enhanced in her previous post, with the One Day at a Time star telling viewers that she’d used the beauty filter on the app because she had dark circles from little sleep the night before. She said she tries to take magnesium and melatonin to aid her nighttime rest, but the supplements don’t always work.
“Genetics! So, let’s not shame people. We’re all in this together,” Bertinelli concluded, before asking fans not to “shame the commenter”. “Let’s all just talk about it and BE KIND,” she said.
Bertinelli’s response to the critic has been met with applause from viewers, with many praising the chef for her handling of the comment.
“Thank you for this! Yes we are all [in this] together! I think you are beautiful!” one viewer wrote, while another said: “I love you and love your positivity.”
