Christina Applegate Reveals Teen Abortion in Memoir
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has laid bare one of the most heartbreaking chapters of her life, claiming she had an abortion as a teenager while involved with an abusive boyfriend.
In her : A Memoir, the 54-year-old actress recounts discovering she was pregnant at 19.
‘In late April 1991, I fell pregnant. I want to turn away from what happened, but it’s all recorded in my diary,’ she writes, per People, admitting the memories remain almost too painful to revisit.
The former Dead to Me star explains that rather than reinterpret the trauma, she chose to include raw excerpts from her teenage journals.
In one 1991 entry, she confessed that ‘too many emotions are filling my soul’ as she grappled with the shock of the pregnancy.
‘I always felt that if I ever got pregnant when I knew it was the wrong time, I wouldn’t have any problem having an abortion,’ she added, while also admitting of her relationship at the time: ‘I don’t really understand my relationship anymore. It isn’t good.’
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Christina Applegate has laid bare one of the most heartbreaking chapters of her life, revealing she had an abortion as a teenager while involved with an abusive boyfriend; (pictured 2023)
In her explosive new memoir You With the Sad Eyes: A Memoir, the 54-year-old actress recounts discovering she was pregnant at 19; (pictured 1988)
She added, 'Sometimes I don't think it's worth it.'
In the tome, Applegate, who she claims put her through years of physical and emotional abuse, and controlled what she wore and ate.
‘I always felt that if I ever got pregnant when I knew it was the wrong time, I wouldn’t have any problem having an abortion,’ she wrote, while also admitting of her relationship at the time: ‘I don’t really understand my relationship anymore. It isn’t good'
She said she was doing ‘okay’, though admitted to feeling ‘kind of woozy’.
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‘That gives me no time to realize what I have done,’ Applegate added. ‘Which is most likely the best right now.’
The deeply personal admission follows further revelations in her memoir about the extreme pressure she felt over her appearance during her years on Married... with Children.
The actress, who portrayed Kelly Bundy throughout the show’s 11-season run, said she was barely eating at the height of its success.
She reflects candidly on battling body dysmorphia and anorexia, explaining that her struggles intensified as her character evolved into the overtly flirtatious, rebellious teenager viewers came to know.
‘I dug myself into a hole with that character, though, because I had to be skinny,’ she wrote. ‘I had a vision of the specific clothes I wanted her to wear, and to wear those clothes - clothes that would show if you ate something as tiny as a single grape - I had to lean even deeper into my eating disorder.’
The sitcom ran from 1987 to 1997, spanning her teens and early twenties, and she admits she went to alarming lengths to maintain her weight, at one point describing herself as little more than ‘bone, bone, bone.’
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‘If I was going to eat something as horrendously huge as a bagel, say, I would scoop it out and maybe have half of it, or half of a half. That would be my food intake for an entire day.
In the tome, Applegate details a lengthy relationship with an unnamed man, who she claims put her through years of physical and emotional abuse, and controlled what she wore and ate; (pictured 1989)
‘Sometimes I’d punish myself and wouldn’t eat at all. I was a size 0, and the costume people on Married... With Children would often have to take my clothes in. I was bone, bone, bone,’ she added.
She confesses she was ‘never satisfied’ as the outfits grew ‘tighter’ and ‘shorter’ over the years, often stepping on set in bikinis - only to feel uncomfortable when the studio audience reacted.
‘By season five, my God: I could walk into the living room, as I did in episode 13, The Godfather, in a leather fringed jacket over a short red shirt and there would be a five-second break in the scene while the crowd hollered lustily at me.
‘I look at all this now and cringe. The show was indeed broad, and lewd, and it wouldn’t have a shot in hell of being made these days.
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‘That’s a good thing: It’s hard enough for young women to thrive in a world of appearances.’
Despite the toll it took, she stresses she does not hold the cast or crew responsible for how the role affected her mental health.
‘Sure, it was always part of the show that I would be an object for men to leer at, but I wanted to wear those Kelly Bundy dresses.
‘And as hard as it may be to believe, I was genuinely innocent of my effect on people. I was just a kid. I knew my self-denial of food and my generally damaging relationship with it were all trauma-based.’
The memoir arrives at a time when Applegate is facing perhaps her toughest chapter yet, having revealed she is now largely confined to bed as her battle with multiple sclerosis progresses.
The actress first disclosed her MS diagnosis in 2021 and has since spoken with unflinching honesty about the physical and emotional toll of the disease.
