Amanda Kloots claps back at person who criticized her dating again after husband's death

"The Talk" co-host Amanda Kloots is responding to questions about her having started dating a year after the death of her husband, confronting one online critic who said it was too soon.

"I just started dating again and it is so crazy to be dating for the first time at 39 years old," the widow of actor Nick Cordero said Friday on her CBS daytime panel-discussion show, explaining that she had met her first and second husbands as Broadway castmates and became friends before marrying. "And it's quite terrifying and really out of your element, and it's just — it's hard. It is hard." While she has met "wonderful people," she said the process remains "very hard. Without getting into too many details, it's very hard."

Afterward, Instagram commenter @aqui099, an account that as of Monday appears to no longer exist, sniped on Kloots' account, "Dating already[.] Wow that was fast."

"How dare you judge anyone[,] especially someone going through this process," Kloots clapped back on Instagram Stories, where posts cycle out after 24 hours but which multiple outlets saved as a screenshot. "I will address this soon[,] guys[,] I promise," the TV personality and fitness trainer continued. "There's too much to say and too much that widows deal with to not talk about it. Until then I will call out anyone who is rude enough to comment like this."

On Sunday, in a 44-minute Instagram video, Kloots discussed being a widow, including the aspect of dating again. "I know a lot of people will say, 'Amanda, you don't have to talk about this, you don't have to justify this … it's nobody's business,' and you're right." But being now in "this widow community," she said, gave her an opportunity to help people struggling "in this new chapter or layer of grief."

She added pointedly, "Guess who can't talk about it? People who aren't going through this. People who don't know what this is like. They can't talk about it, because you have no basis to talk about it."

Expanding on her "The Talk" comment, she said, "I've had, I think, like, three 'dates,' " using air-quotes for the last word. "I don't know if you'd even call them dates, because it's been super-duper casual, because that's all that I'm comfortable with right now. … I still wear my wedding ring — I haven't taken it off," she noted, explaining that "taking my wedding ring off before the date makes me feel like I'm cheating on my husband, in a weird way, which doesn't make any sense because I'm totally not."

Then addressing evident rumors or tabloid talk, Kloots assured, "I don't have a boyfriend. I am not in love again. I am not secretly engaged. I am not secretly pregnant."

Cordero, a Tony Award-nominee for the 2014 Woody Allen play "Bullets Over Broadway," died last July at age 41 of complications from COVID-19, three-and-a-half months after being admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He left behind Kloots and their infant son Elvis, now 2.