Valerie Bertinelli is telling her truth, filter-free.
The “One Day at a Time” alum posted a TikTok Sunday in response to a user who commented “The Botox looks great” on one of her prior videos.
The Food Network star interpreted the comment as sarcasm, but decided to switch gears by responding to the mockery with mindfulness.
“I know you didn’t mean that as a compliment, but let’s talk about it, shall we?” Bertinelli began. “I have tried Botox … I hated it.”
The “Hot in Cleveland” star then pulled up a photo of herself from six years ago when she did get Botox, and explained that the procedure “changed the shape of my eyebrows” resulting in her not recognizing her own face.
“What I thought it was going to do was help me with my genetically puffy eyes,” Bertinelli explained. “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.”
But then Bertinelli got to the real reason why she wanted to talk about the comment.
“Because you’re trying to shame me, and you’re a woman. Like, what made you go out of your way to try to shame me?” Bertinelli said. “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, OK? 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, OK?”
She then shattered any kind of stigma surrounding cosmetic procedures by admitting that if Botox helped her feel better about her appearance, she’d use it.
“Some people can do Botox, and it looks amazing on them,” she said. “I am not one of them, unfortunately, or I would’ve kept doing it. But thankfully, it faded. I couldn’t wait for it to fade.”
Bertinelli closed out her thoughts by admitting that she does use the “Water Glow” filter on TikTok to “soften” her features, and then briefly took the filter off.
“It kind of softens everything, especially my under-eye circles,” she said. “I get good sleep, I get bad sleep.”
“It’s genetics,” she concluded. “So, let’s not shame people, OK? We’re all in this together!”
Bertinelli offered a similar sentiment in 2021 while responding to a disparaging comment about her body on Instagram.
“Aren’t we tired of body shaming women yet?! Smh.”
In the post’s corresponding video, she added, “We all could use a little more kindness and patience and grace, because we just never know what someone else is going through.”