Christina Applegate has opened up about ending her relationship with Brad Pitt in favor of Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach during the peak of her fame on the sitcom Married … With Children. Her new memoir, You with the Sad Eyes, exposes the truths behind her public image and sheds light on this little-known chapter of her early life.
Early Hollywood Years and the MTV Video Music Awards Incident
At 17 years old, Christina Applegate was already making waves in Hollywood but initially disliked her breakout character, Kelly Bundy. Despite her reservations, Applegate accepted the role that launched her career. When the show’s success surged, she was invited to co-host the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. She brought along Brad Pitt, then a relatively unknown 26-year-old actor, as part of her Hollywood circle that also included Johnny Depp, with whom she admits to having been in love for years.
However, despite Pitt’s presence, Applegate’s attention was captivated by Sebastian Bach, the lead singer of Skid Row, famous for the hit “18 and Life.” In her memoir, she recounts,
“I had spent all night staring at Bach, who was then a long-haired hunk fronting the band Skid Row.”
She adds,
“I hate to put it like this, but Brad back then was still making his way as an actor, and he wasn’t yet THE Brad Pitt, the man of so many people’s dreams.”
The night took a dramatic turn when Pitt was left to drive Applegate’s mother home, enduring tensions after nearly getting into a fight at a gas station with local gang members. Applegate reveals,
“And it gets worse: Brad was left to sullenly drive my mom … 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.”
The Fallout of Dumping Brad Pitt for Sebastian Bach
Applegate soon regretted her decision upon learning that Bach was already in a committed relationship with a partner and a one-year-old child. Following the MTV event, Pitt and Applegate lost contact for many years. Reflecting on this period, she recalls that ”much later … two of [Pitt’s] movie star girlfriends 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.”
Eventually, they reconciled emotionally. Applegate writes,
“Eventually, we agreed that I’d 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.”
She humorously comments on the outcome:
“Of course, Brad is now THE Brad Pitt, and Sebastian Bach … well, he still has long hair, I guess.”
Struggles with Body Image and the Kelly Bundy Persona
Applegate’s memoir also unveils her longstanding battle with body image issues that began in childhood. Her mother, Nancy Priddy, reportedly suggested liposuction on Applegate’s thighs during her teenage years. As Kelly Bundy, Applegate faced pressure to maintain a certain look, often spending hours exercising and restricting her eating to fit into tight Lycra outfits characteristic of her role’s “rocker chick” image.
The actress shares a poignant reflection:
“My ability to catch the eye of a then famous rock star and then ditch someone like Brad Pitt at an after-party … still couldn’t convince me I was an attractive person.”
She further explains,
“For millions of Americans watching ‘Married…with Children’ I was an exemplar of female beauty, but to me, I was ‘too plain.’ I thought my face was mediocre at best. I worked on my body so hard, but I was never satisfied. There were days when I’d 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.”
She concludes regarding her perfectionism:
“My sickness for perfection was always the driving force in my life.”
Despite these struggles, Applegate does not blame the show’s producers for her body image issues. She admits,
“Sure, 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.”
Originally, Kelly was meant to be a tough biker character, but Applegate transformed her after watching the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years. The film features strippers in Lycra dresses with big, crimped hair, which inspired her portrayal.
She notes,
“Kelly Bundy was reborn as a full rock slut,”
though she also portrayed Kelly as a virgin, despite viewers understanding the irony. Applegate insists,
“She 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. I have been told that I just played a whore. Not true.”
Personal Relationships and Challenges
Outside of her career, Applegate’s memoir reveals a series of difficult romantic relationships. At 17, during her stint on Married With Children, she briefly dated Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their date at a farmers market included her mother joining them for a sandwich. Kiedis amusingly shared that he never wore deodorant, saying,
“A horse will know me before they will know you.”
Applegate recalls,
“Then Anthony dumped me, but right after he did, he said ‘Hey, could you do my laundry?’ And like a stupid f–king fan I did it.”
She candidly reflects on her pattern of choosing problematic partners, acknowledging,
“My diaries list almost endless problems with the men I picked to date,”
and describes them as “a–holes and f–kups” she thought she could fix. One abusive relationship lasting years involved controlling behavior over what she wore and ate, leading her mother to plead,
“get the f–k away from him.”
Ed O’Neill, who portrayed her father Al on the show, disliked the boyfriend so strongly that Applegate feared he might assault him.
During this time, Applegate became pregnant in April 1991 but opted for an abortion. She ended the relationship after a violent altercation where her boyfriend threw a lighter at her and forced tequila down her throat. The strain of these experiences is later connected in her memoir to her 2021 diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, although she leaves the causation open to interpretation.
Later Relationships, Family Life, and Health Battles
Following this tumultuous period, Applegate had several relationships before marrying actor Johnathon Schaech in 2001, despite doubting he was the right partner even on their wedding day. The marriage ended in 2005. She later dated photographer Lee Grivas and began a relationship with Dutch musician Martyn Lenoble of Porno for Pyros. After Grivas died of a drug overdose, Applegate married Lenoble in 2013, and the couple share a daughter, Sadie, now 15 years old.
Her health challenges continued as well. While working on the comedy series Samantha Who, Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and underwent a double mastectomy, feeling as though she was “cursed.” Her battle with MS has left her bedridden at times and requiring assistance, including wearing a diaper. She expresses emotional difficulty in being there fully for Sadie during her ongoing fight.
Reflecting on her life’s hardships and growth, Applegate writes,
“For so much of my life, I’ve felt like the good underlies the bad, but something strange has happened, something I’m not used to. I won’t lie anymore, be the good girl, and say that any of this is a blessing, but there’s some shred of self-understanding that continues to slowly emerge as I feel the story of these past fifty or so years.”
She shares a heartfelt intention for her memoir’s purpose:
“I want to talk to that little girl who always thought she had to be perfect. Maybe that’s what this book is.”
