Christina Applegate reveals how she dumped Brad Pitt \u2014\u00a0for Skid Row rocker Sebastian Bach \u2014\u00a0 at the height of her \u201cMarried \u2026 With Children\u201d fame, as she details the dark truths behind her sunny Hollywood persona.<\/p>\n
The beloved star, now 54, admits in her new memoir, \u201cYou with the Sad Eyes,\u201d<\/a> that she very nearly didn\u2019t take the sitcom role that made her a star, because \u201cI hated Kelly Bundy.\u201d<\/p>\n After the show became a hit, she was asked to be a presenter at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards and invited Pitt, then 26 and part of her LA posse \u2014\u00a0which also included Johnny Depp, whom Applegate admits she was \u201cin love with for years.\u201d<\/p>\n But that night, she only had eyes for the \u201c18 and Life\u201d singer.<\/p>\n Christina Applegate recounts how she took Brad Pitt to the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards \u2014 only to ditch him for Skid Row rocker Sebastian Bach on the night. FilmMagic, Inc<\/p>\n Applegate met Pitt \u2014 then an up-and-coming actor \u2014 through her posse of young Hollywood pals. WireImage<\/p>\n \u201cI had spent all night staring at Bach, who was then a long-haired hunk fronting the band Skid Row,\u201d Applegate, who was 17 at the time, writes. \u201cI hate to put it like this, but Brad back then was still making his way as an actor, and he wasn\u2019t yet THE Brad Pitt, the man of so many people\u2019s dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n The actress adds: \u201cAnd it gets worse: Brad was left to sullenly drive my mom \u2026 home. Apparently, at a gas station on the way, Brad almost got into a fight with a bunch of gang members, and, not surprisingly, was subsequently very mad at me.\u201d<\/p>\n She regretted the decision as soon as she found out that Bach already had a long-term partner and a 1-year-old child.<\/p>\n Pitt, meanwhile, \u201cdidn\u2019t talk\u201d to her \u201cfor many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Applegate recalls that \u201cmuch later \u2026 two of [Pitt\u2019s] movie star girlfriends<\/a> asked me if it was true that I was the girl who left Brad behind at the MTV Video Music Awards. Brad had apparently told both of them separately that he was still mad at me.<\/p>\n The actress says she was upset to find out Sebastian Bach had a longtime partner and a young child. Redferns<\/p>\n Applegate became famous for playing Kelly Bundy on \u201cMarried With Children\u201d and writes that the character was originally supposed to be a \u201ctough biker chick,\u201d but that all changed after she pushed for her to be a \u201cfull rock slut.\u201d Columbia Pictures Television<\/p>\n \u201cEventually, we agreed that I\u2019d been a kid, and though he deserved much better, it was time to forgive the child who dumped him for the lead singer of Skid Row.\u201d<\/p>\n She jokes, \u201cOf course, Brad\u00a0is now THE Brad Pitt, and Sebastian Bach \u2026 well, he still has long hair, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n Applegate, who started acting at age 5 to help pay the bills, is open about body-image issues<\/a> that started when she was super young. She writes how her mom, Nancy Priddy, even suggested liposuction on her thighs when she was still a teen.<\/p>\n Things escalated when she was on \u201cMarried \u2026 \u201d as the character of Kelly Bundy was known for her skimpy, skintight rocker-chick outfits. Applegate would work out for hours and go without food to fit into Kelly\u2019s Lycra dresses.<\/p>\n Applegate initially turned down the sitcom \u2014 which also starred Katey Segal, Ed O\u2019Neill and David Faustino \u2014 because she \u201chated\u201d the character of Kelly Bundy. The actress later came to love the role. \u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n The star admits she worked out for hours on end and would barely eat so she could fit into her character Kelly Bundy\u2019s skintight wardrobe. \u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n \u201cMy ability to catch the eye of a then famous rock star and then ditch someone like Brad Pitt at an after-party \u2026 still couldn\u2019t convince me I was an attractive person,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n \u201cFor millions of Americans watching \u2018Married\u2026with Children\u201d I was an exemplar of female beauty, but to me, I was \u2018too plain,’\u201d she says, \u201cI thought my face was mediocre at best.\u00a0I worked on my body so hard, but I was never satisfied. There were days when I\u2019d go to a spin class and then work out with my trainer and then go to a dance class for two and a half more hours, always chasing the unobtainable, abusing my body in the service of a quest for perfection that was itself as damaging as any addiction.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sickness for perfection was always the driving force in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the star doesn\u2019t blame the show. <\/p>\n As a young Hollywood star, Applegate reveals she was in love with Johnny Depp, who was just a friend, and would often visit him on the Vancouver set of his TV hit \u201c21 Jump Street.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure, it was always part of the show that I would be an object for me to leer at, but I was the one who wanted to wear those Kelly Bundy dresses to represent something in the zeitgeist,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n Indeed, Kelly was originally supposed to be a \u201ctough biker chick,\u201d but that all changed after Applegate saw a screening of the now-classic documentary \u201cThe Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years\u201d \u2014\u00a0which includes a beauty competition for strippers clad in \u201cLycra dresses, their hair way up, super big, all crimped and groupie like.\u201d<\/p>\n About her future plans, the winner says: \u201cI\u2019m going to continue on with my modeling and hopefully go on with my actressing.\u201d<\/p>\n And Kelly Bundy was reborn, Applegate writes, \u201cas a full rock slut.\u201d<\/p>\n Applegate writes about abuse, toxic relationships and her health issues in her new memoir, out now.<\/p>\n Yet she also played her as a virgin, even if viewers were totally in on that.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a product of the time, of MTV music videos, with women who wore corsets that were way too tight and did weird stuff for guys with frizzy hair,\u201d the actress writes. \u201cI have been told that I just played a whore. Not true.\u201d<\/p>\n In real life, Applegate dated Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis \u201cfor a brief second\u201d when she was 17 and starring on \u201cMarried With Children.\u201d<\/p>\n They had a date at a farmers market, where her mom joined them for a sandwich, and Kiedis regaled her with the fact that he never wore deodorant. \u201cA horse will know me before they will know you,\u201d he told her.<\/p>\n \u201cThen Anthony dumped me, but right after he did, he said \u2018Hey, could you do my laundry?\u201d And like a stupid f\u2013king fan I did it,\u201d Applegate writes.<\/p>\n Applegate wed actor Johnathon Schaech at a sober, vegan wedding in Palm Springs in 2001. They split in 2005. WireImage<\/p>\n Applegate went on to marry Porno for Pyros musician Martyn Lenoble in 2013, and the pair share daughter Sadie. WireImage<\/p>\n Applegate\u2019s diaries \u201clist almost endless problems with the men I picked to date,\u201d she says, noting that she picked \u201ca\u2013holes\u201d and f\u2013kups\u201d she thought she could fix.\u00a0<\/p>\n She had a lengthy relationship with a man, unnamed in the book, who subjected her to years of physical and emotional abuse \u2014\u00a0controlling what she wore and ate. <\/p>\n Her mother begged her to \u201cget the f\u2013k away from him.\u201d And Ed O\u2019Neill, who played her dad Al on the show, \u201chated\u201d the boyfriend so much she thought the actor might punch him. <\/p>\n Applegate had an abortion after becoming pregnant by him in April 1991. She finally kicked the boyfriend out of her Laurel Canyon home after a fight in which he threw a cigarette lighter at her and tipped a bottle of tequila down her throat. <\/p>\n