In a profoundly personal and revealing new memoir, actress Christina Applegate has opened up about one of the most traumatic periods of her life, detailing a teenage abortion while involved with an abusive boyfriend. The 54-year-old star, best known for her role in "Dead to Me" and "Married... with Children," shares unflinching excerpts from her teenage diaries in the book titled You With the Sad Eyes: A Memoir.
A Heartbreaking Decision at Nineteen
Applegate recounts discovering she was pregnant at the age of 19 in late April 1991, a memory she describes as almost too painful to revisit. "I want to turn away from what happened, but it's all recorded in my diary," she writes, per People magazine. Rather than reinterpret the trauma, she chose to include raw, unfiltered passages from her journals, offering readers a direct window into her adolescent anguish.
Emotional Turmoil and Relationship Struggles
In one 1991 entry, she confessed that "too many emotions are filling my soul" as she grappled with the shock of the pregnancy. While she had previously believed she "wouldn't have any problem having an abortion" if pregnant at the wrong time, the reality proved far more complex. She also admitted confusion about her relationship at the time, writing, "I don't really understand my relationship anymore. It isn't good," and adding, "Sometimes I don't think it's worth it."
The memoir details a lengthy relationship with an unnamed man who subjected her to years of physical and emotional abuse, controlling aspects of her life from what she wore to what she ate. Applegate recalls her mother desperately urging her to "get the f*** away from him." Within 24 hours of discovering the pregnancy, her already fragile relationship spiraled further, taking what she described in her diary as a "brutal turn." It was in the aftermath of this upheaval that she decided to terminate the pregnancy.
Raw Diary Entries Capture the Pain
Her diary from that period captures the raw emotion: "I'm f****** pregnant and I'm killing my child on Thursday. I'm thinking where the f*** can I go to recuperate from murder..." She also expressed fear about his family's reaction, noting they didn't believe in abortion, but concluded, "I can't have this baby because I have work to do to entertain this f******* world. Besides, I can't...now."
Following the procedure, Applegate documented the physical and emotional aftermath in another candid entry, saying she was doing "okay" though feeling "kind of woozy." She added, "That gives me no time to realize what I have done, which is most likely the best right now." The actress, now a mother to 15-year-old daughter Sadie, reflects on this chapter with heartbreaking honesty.
Battling Eating Disorders on Screen
The deeply personal admission is accompanied by further revelations in her memoir about the extreme pressure she felt over her appearance during her years on Married... with Children. Applegate, who portrayed Kelly Bundy throughout the show's 11-season run from 1987 to 1997, reveals she was barely eating at the height of its success.
Body Dysmorphia and Anorexia
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."
Applegate admits she went to alarming lengths to maintain her weight, at one point describing herself as little more than "bone, bone, bone." Her food intake was severely restricted: "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."
Studio Audience Reactions and Self-Reflection
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," she recalls.
Looking back, Applegate states, "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. 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.
Trauma and Moving Forward
"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," she explains. "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, adding another layer of resilience to her story of survival and disclosure.
