Valerie Bertinelli was mistaken for a sex worker when she joined her late ex-husband Eddie Van Halen on tour in South America.

Hotel staff barred the actress and her spouse's brother, Alex Van Halen's then-wife, Valeri Kendall, from returning to their husbands' rooms on the upper floor after mistaking them for prostitutes following a night out at a bar in the 1980s.

Appearing on the latest episode of actors Ted Danson, 78, and 64-year-old Woody Harrelson's Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Valerie, 66, explained that she missed an episode of her sitcom One Day at a Time to jet out to South America with Eddie for his Van Halen tour.

She recalled: "[Van Halen was] going to South America, and I wanted to go. And part of it was on one of our hiatuses, and then the other part I should've been back for work, but I begged them, 'Can I please go so I can go to South America for two weeks?' And I did. So they were great.

"So there was one episode that I was not in."

The Hot in Cleveland alum could not remember if the incident happened in Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, but added: "Ed and Al, his brother, had gone downstairs and we, Al's wife at the time, had said, 'Let's go down and join them.'

"So we go down to join them, and then we're at the bar, whatever. And then the boys go back upstairs, and we said, 'OK, we'll join you later. And we were having fun at the bar.

"Valeri and I got to the elevator to go up to the room, and [hotel staff] are like, 'No, no.' [I said], 'Why? What's happening? Why can't we go up?'

"And they were trying to tell us that prostitutes aren't allowed on the upper floors."

The Touched by an Angel cast member tried to flash her wedding ring at the hotel workers, but they did not budge.

So Valerie was forced to make an embarrassing phone call to Eddie to prove they were married.

The ex-Food Network star said: "I had to leave the elevator, get on the phone because there were no cell phones in the early 80s, and call Ed in the room and say, 'Can you come down and get me because they won't let me up. They think Valeri and I are prostitutes.'"

Valerie laughed as she said: "So I've been mistaken for a prostitute before. Or, to be polite, a sex worker."

The TV personality married Eddie in 1981, and they have a 35-year-old son, singer-songwriter Wolfgang Van Halen.

But Valerie and Eddie's relationship broke down because of his use of drugs and alcohol, as well as his infidelity; they divorced in 2007, 13 years before his death, following a battle with throat cancer aged 65.