Valerie Bertinelli Has Been Replaced on 'Kids Baking Championship' — Here's Why She Left

The Season 12 finale of Kids Baking Championship on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, marked Valerie Bertinelli's final appearance as both host and judge — and many fans were caught off guard. However, nearly a month earlier, in January, she revealed in an Instagram video that she had been let go from the show.

In a now-deleted post on X (formerly Twitter), the Touched by an Angel alum asserted that there "were never any talks" for her to come back.

"I got an inkling I might not be asked back when I saw I was not in the holiday specials," she explained. "I got a text [from] a third party on Friday that told me I would not be back. LOL, I was basically ghosted."

In that January 20 Instagram video, Valerie said that she got confirmation of her Kids Baking Championship exit the prior night: "I didn't want to talk about it last night. I wanted to sleep on it because it really hurt my feelings," she said.

"And I know it’s not supposed to," she added. “Logically, I know that it's business. Budget cuts, right? But it really hurt my feelings to know that I’m not going to be asked back to be on Kids Baking Championship. Really sucks."

As Valerie explained, Season 12 was filmed in the summer of 2022, which she described as her "apex year of hell." (That was the year the actor-turned-TV host navigated a divorce from now-ex-husband Tom Vitale.)

"Like, I was going through it and pretending everything was just fine because that's what you do," Valerie said. "And without sounding like a drama queen, the show saved my life. Working with all those really wonderful people and feeling productive and knowing I could spread some kindness and not just wallow in my hell and just try to keep my head above water, it helped me. It was like a floatation device."

Valerie added, "So it really hurts that I won’t be able to go back and see everybody and say, 'Hey! I made it through! Hi!' I think I’m just most sad that I won’t be able to tell people what they mean to me."

Valerie's departure from Kids Baking Championship came after Food Network declined to renew the exclusive, multi-series overall deal she had with the network, per Variety. The Hot in Cleveland alum signed that deal in 2018, and Food Network extended it a year when it expired in 2021 but opted to let it expire in 2022.

A source close to the situation told Variety that Food Network assumed that because it didn't renew her overall deal, Valerie wouldn't agree to a separate offer to continue hosting Kids Baking Championship.

However, it sounds like they didn't even make an attempt. Valerie's longtime manager, Marc Schwartz, told Variety, "Her deal expired, they opted not to renew it. They could have come to me with an offer just for Kids. They never did. Simple as that."