True Colors // Christina Applegate's "You with the Sad Eyes"

A memoir can feel like a mirror you didn’t ask for. 

We opened Christina Applegate’s and found an unvarnished account of survival: a child actor who worked to live, a dancer who prayed with her body, an artist who hid behind “Christina Applegate” until truth demanded center stage.  

We dig into the fault lines: body image and shame running alongside career highs; Sweet Charity on Broadway as a masterclass in grit after a brutal injury; pay inequity countered by quiet solidarity; and more. Her reflections on breast cancer and MS aren’t wrapped in “warrior” clichés.  If you’ve ever performed strength because the world is allergic to pain, her confession will help you feel seen.

We also sit with research tying childhood trauma to MS risk, not as final verdict but as a challenge to take our histories seriously. By the end, she rejects the persona and claims the name her people use—Kiki—then asks a question that lingers: Who are you?

Hit play for a thoughtful, unsentimental conversation about truth, trauma, dance, illness, craft, and the fragile alchemy of happiness-with-sadness. If this moved you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review telling us the line you can’t stop thinking about.

Purchase Christina Applegate's "You with the Sad Eyes"

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Thank you for listening!
Xx, Alex

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Transcript

First Reactions To The Memoir

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, Lizzie.

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hi, Alex.

Themes Of Truth, Trauma, And Regret

Dedication To Sadie And Quick Hits

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Thank you for being that friend that I can be like, can you read a book in less than 48 hours and be reading outline it and talk about it with me? Yeah, I'm just I'm trying this thing where if I can release episodes pretty quickly after memoirs come out, uh, I'm gonna try to do it. So thank you for reading Christina Applegate's You with the Sad Eyes. What did you think? This was one of the hardest memoirs I have ever read or listened to. This memoir is it's raw, it's brave, it's heartbreaking, it's so insightful. I listened to the audiobook in her own words. And when I tell you that I was deeply moved, I mean I was crying with her. I was laughing with her. Like I felt very close to her. I felt like I was in the room with her as she was telling me about her life. And I was very taken aback by how she was able to reference and share very personal journal entries going back to childhood and then extending well into her adult life. Having something physical to show you, like how much your thoughts have changed and how much you've grown is or haven't. Right. What I really took away from all of it, besides the fact that she's so talented, so smart, a Hollywood legend in my eyes, is really that deep-seated, unresolved trauma can lead to unintended consequences later in life. Yeah. If we don't deal with the things that are bothering us or the things that have hurt us, it will have consequences down the line. And also like the responsibility that we put on ourselves to make other people happy almost always is gonna make us more unhappy. Putting ourselves first. I completely agree. I actually did not cry until the very end, the very last line like broke me, the last two line, three lines. And I just kind of wept with her for her for a moment. This memoir was such a unique experience for me because it felt like watching someone bleed. And then there was no way to like stop the bleeding. Yeah. I finished it in less than five hours. Yeah, you did. Sent you the outline Wednesday. I put aside my day to read it. Okay. I'm not like super super woman, but yes, I'm a quick reader. And then I've just been kind of processing it because it was such a unique experience reading this memoir. And also it sort of made me reflect on like what I expect memoir to be. Do I need there to be these obvious life lessons or obvious soapbox moments? Because my biggest takeaway from this was that like you better fucking figure it out because life is so short. And in similar to what you were saying, there like there's so much regret in these pages. Yeah. I came into it a huge Christina Applegate fan. I left it an even bigger Christina Applegate fan with even more admiration and respect for her. Um, I think that this is a story of a woman who searched for happiness her whole life. And maybe she comes to realize that happiness doesn't exist in the absence of sadness, but with an acknowledgement of it. In the prologue, she writes that this memoir is her finally sharing her truth. She writes, I truly believe that living in truth will liberate all of us. You, me, everyone. And so she does tell us her truth. She details horrific childhood trauma, which we'll get into, wonders if it somehow triggered or caused her MS, which was that that moment stopped me. She writes about this constant darkness and sadness that she carried with her through her life. And she finishes the book highlighting the importance of forgiveness and the love that she has for her daughter, Sadie. She's still just in so much pain. And I think she's grappling with what her life has become. The things that MS multiple sclerosis has stolen from her. And she's unsure about what her future holds. And so, in so many ways, like when I read Demi's memoir or Viola Davis's memoir, right? They have had traumatic childhoods as well. But it feels like they've come out on the other side of it and they're ready to like do life differently now. And it's like Christina Applegate doesn't have that privilege, which was so interesting. I don't know. It's, I'm still like sitting with it. So this book stays with you. And you're, I think you're gonna just keep rethinking about things that she said. So we're gonna work through it today because I think through her memoir, she encourages us to embrace our own truths, our darkness, and our light. And our light. She writes it all with a sharp, biting humor. So we'll try to infuse that a little bit too. Okay, let's get further into it. So this book was published March 2026. This is her dedication. This is for Sadie. Everything I do is for Sadie. Writing this book is for Sadie. These next words are for Sadie. My darling child, you are my reason, my season, and my lifetime. The love for her daughter just poured from these pages. All right, let's start with the quick topics. All right, Lizzie. What is your favorite Christina Applegate project TV slash movie? I'm sure that you could guess this. Anchorman. No.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

What?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

No. No. Oh, it's dead to me. It's dead to me. No. All right.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

I'm just gonna let you speak.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

You know that I love Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

unknown 5:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

I made you sit and watch it with me.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yes, we realized that that was a movie that we both loved as children. I did love her in Anchorman. I thought she was fantastic. And I loved Dead to Me. I binged the first and second season like literally in a day. Um, I have not finished it, but upon reading this, I um I am interested in getting back into it, revisiting it. Yeah, I haven't seen it. And I was gonna try to watch all of it yesterday, but time got away from me. Um, but I am really curious to watch it now. Yeah, it's it's a it's a very good show. I remember you telling me that. Yeah, you were like, you gotta watch it. And I was like, I know, I will. It's been one of those shows. It's like add it to the list, you know? Add it to the list. Okay. So what is what is your favorite? My favorite is this underdog of a TV show, Samantha Who. She does write about that a lot in her memoir, which I was so happy to read about. That TV show was fucking hilarious. It was ahead of its time. It got canceled way too soon. If you guys have not seen Samantha Who, I think you can still find it somewhere. It's got to be online somewhere. It just really shows her genius. Melissa McCarthy, Jennifer Esposito, and the guy from Seventh Heaven, the older brother. He's like the love interest in it. Really? Yeah, what's his name? I forget. I was not a Seventh Heaven girl, but he's great in it. It's so good. And then the sweetest thing will also always hold a very special place in my heart because I watched that movie way too young and was exposed to just honestly, it was kind of amazing as a very prude little like high schooler to watch a movie about these women who just owned their sexuality and like would call out coochie to their friend. And I don't know. It's kind of it was kind of an empowering movie, even though it's also so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Selma Blair, her like piercing gets stuck on the guy's penis and the blowjob. I was like, what am I watching? I'm 12. Um, but yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Okay, next quick topic. In her prologue, Christina Aguilera tells us.

Titles, Movies, And Pop Culture Tangents

SPEAKER_01 8:07

You have to keep that in. You have to keep that in. What the everlasting.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I have not had enough coffee today. Christina Applegate tells us to put her book down and go watch 16 Candles if we haven't seen it yet. Because one, it's more uplifting than her memoir. And it seems like it's just a movie that encapsulates her youth. And she's like, you gotta go watch this movie. What do you think is a movie that encapsulates your youth? Like, what would your 16 candles be? I kind of struggled with this question because I had older sisters, and when I was pretty young, I was watching movies from the 80s and early 90s that were like their movies, but that I have a really strong attachment to. Okay. For example, the Goonies. Okay, I see what you're saying. I feel like you talk about the movie Little Monsters a lot. Yes, that is another one with the Savage Boys and um what's his name? Uh Howie Mandel. No. He's a monster. Yes. So that's right.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So yes, so um and yeah, there are a lot of similarities between those those two movies. You know, they they go into like an otherworldly place and then they come out, they both literally actually they both have the same ending. They both literally come out on like a beach and get saved. Interesting. Interesting. Um, and then of course the body guard, but I was way too young to be in theaters. Um, but you know, yeah. What about you? Mine would be um the remake of the parent trap. That movie. That movie came out at the perfect time when I was a child. Sweet little Lilo. 100%, yeah. I have I have um story about that later. Oh, tell me later. Tell me later. Yeah. Actually, my friend Becca who's done the podcast a couple of times. We were besties during that time in our life, and we memorized that handshake. It's amazing. It's amazing. That whole movie is amazing. I love it. Yeah, it's too good. It's too good. Okay. So, Lizzie, I thought that this was this was so interesting, right? She named her memoir You with the Sad Eyes, which is a lyric from the Cindy Lauper song, True Colors. It just made me think of you and I did this promo, which never went anywhere, where we were like, if you had to name your memoir, what would it be? And I did something really stupid, like mama, mama tried or something. It was like so dumb. I couldn't think of anything. And you came up with, I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

And I remember thinking at the time, damn, that's good. And then like a week later, I heard the matchbox. Okay. I heard the song and I was like, Alex, you fucking loved matchbox 20.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Like, no, the the title I came up with wasn't the matchbox 20 lyrics. It was similar. It was I'm not weird. Not well.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

I'm I'm not well. Yeah. I'm crying.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Alex, when you said that, I was like, that's a Rob Thomas lyric. Oh my gosh, we're crying tears of laughter now. We'll be crying tears of sadness later. Okay, okay. So would you stick with I'm not weird? I'm not weird, I'm not well. Would you stick with that?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Um it's between it's between I'm not weird, I'm not well, and good for her. But said in like a Brooklyn accent.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

I love it. I feel like your memory would be like good for her, but underneath it's like say it in a Brooklyn accent.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

I didn't even put I put mascara on like two days ago. Lord. All right, all right, all right. I still don't I don't have a good title for my memoir.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

All right, well, we're gonna work on it. Yeah.

Journaling, Memory, And Honesty

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Okay. All right, next quick topic. Okay, so she shares these letters that her father wrote to her when she's an infant. He ends up abandoning her and her mother very quickly, which we'll get into, and this was a huge traumatic thing for her. But I really I loved reading these letters. I remember a girlfriend telling me when I first had my kids, she had set up an email account for her kids and would like email them. And of course, there's all these books, right? Like raising you, and you get to, and I have started that. I have email accounts for both my kids. I used to be a lot better at it. This actually, I meant to send them an email two days ago when I made the outline. I'm sending them an email soon. But have you ever thought about like do you have letters from your parents? Yes, I do. Saved from my parents, from friends, from whatever. And one day I know that I will, I know that they're there and I and I remember a little like the gist of what they said, but I know that one day I will take that box down and read them, and it will have an even deeper meaning. And um I'm just like comforted by the fact that I know that they're they're there. But no, this entire memoir has really inspired me to document more, not just in potentially writing letters to my daughter, but writing down my own thoughts about whatever, whatever's happening. Like I said before, I'm I'm really impressed that she started kind of cataloging her life and experiences at such a young age, and then that became like almost a ritual, or I mean that was like part of her routine, and that they all survived and that she was able to look back on them. I'm wowed. I'm just totally wowed. And like also, there's you know, there's a little bit of fear in that because you're putting word to paper and potentially someone can find it and read it. And I mean, clearly no one read any of her stuff. It's definitely something that after reading this, I feel inspired to do because there's gotta be something therapeutic about getting it out and putting it on paper. Yeah, I think that, you know, if her whole her whole memoir is about being truthful, to me, her journals throughout her entire life were kind of the one place that she really could be truthful and like let let the like the ugly truth. Yeah, I I actually was really struck by the the fact that like she kept it all too because we've talked about this. Like I had journals from high school and I got rid of that shit in like when I was in my early 20s because I was like, oh gosh, who is this girl that's so embarrassing? And maybe now it would be kind of cute to have. I have enough embarrassing stuff. Like I had sent my now husband a bunch of letters when we were first first courting, first dating in college, and oh my gosh, they're so embarrassing and they're so reflective of like who I was at that time. And you know what? Fine, we'll keep we'll keep those. It's kind of funny now. But yeah, just the the idea that she realized she wanted to hang on to to these things. Right. I don't think that there was any mention of therapy, like like actual like therapy. I know that she, you know, she turned to a church and then, you know, has have specialists and and whatnot. But do you remember any? I remember because I was actually really, I was waiting for that as I was reading it. And I remember she kind of mentioned like she got help for her eating disorder.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Okay.

Voice, Audiobook, And Raw Delivery

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And I don't know what that meant, but you're right. She never it she doesn't really talk about therapy or going to therapy. And that was one thing that I, you know, I think would have been helpful. I mean, obviously, like even now, which, you know, I don't want to project my own shit onto her. Like, she's no, of course not clearly doing what she needs to do to like live her life the way that she wants to live it now. But I think therapy is very helpful. And we also don't know, like, she was living in a different time with access to different things, and like this may have been the best that she could do. She was also like working constantly and on television shows. So I mean, I can't fault her for that, but I did think it was interesting that she she wrote it all down, and so she's able to refer to very, very specific times in in life. Yeah, and she even allows that to be her words, you know. She's like, I already wrote about this experience. I'm just gonna copy and paste my journal here, which I appreciated. Yeah. I do feel like she also seemed to be working through and reflecting on her life with us as she wrote her memoir. It felt very like happening in real time.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

This was not someone who had like worked through stuff, all of the stuff. She she was like, I'm writing my truth, I'm telling my story, and oh, I'm realizing this right now. And oh, I'm realizing this right now. And so that was a very unique experience, too. You can, yeah. So I told you that I I listened to her tell me her story, and you can very much, very much tell that. Yeah. And that's okay. I mean, I think, you know, sometimes I feel like people have written memoirs too soon. Oh, yeah. But in her case, it kind of worked because you you understand that this woman needed to get her truth out before she no longer could. And I'm sure it was still a very physically painful process to actually sit and write, sit and write this memoir. And there's also just this aspect of like, we are interested in celebrities' lives. We're interested in them. And there's some fun Hollywood gossip juice tea in here, you know, that that makes it extra interesting. But I think that was like something that at the end of the memoir, I was like, damn, dude, like she doesn't get to take all of these reflections and like move forward in life in in an only positive way because she literally can't.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

And it was heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah.

Identity Versus Persona

Dance As Therapy And Loss

Early Hollywood And Survival

Shame, Beauty, And Body Image

SPEAKER_00 18:19

But it was to me this just like siren going off in my head, like, love yourself before it's too late. Love life before it's too late. Work to feel you deserve a good life before it's too late. And again, I hope anybody out there listening, like, I'm not trying to project how I think she's feeling, but at the end of the day, like, this is just what I took away from it. So maybe that's not what she was going for, but that's what I took. So okay, next quick topic. This is how the story of how Christina Applegate got her name. Chilling. So she writes that her mother named her after her mother's favorite painting, Andrew Wyatt's 1948's Christina's World. She writes, it's almost too strange a coincidence, given everything that's happened to me in the past few years, that Christina's World depicts a neighbor of Wyatt's, one Anna Christina Olsen, who suffered from some kind of degenerative muscle condition. Miss Olsen always refused a wheelchair, choosing instead to crawl. Wyatt once said of the painting, the challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless. And here I am, Christina continues, with MS, some days feeling hopeless, but still crawling my way forward, still in my own extraordinary conquest of life. My mother called me Christina, nothing is an accident, after a girl who couldn't walk. Now, five decades later, some days I can't walk either. I know exactly what that painting is. That's one of my dad's favorite uh paintings. And as I was, as I was listening to her say this, I was like, oh, I was make I was drawing the connections, and I, when she gets to the part where she says, nothing is an accident, I was named after a girl who couldn't walk. She chokes up and it immediately just immediately killed me to in real time, as she's talking, start connecting the dots and making those parallels that she was eventually about to reveal. And it's it's it sounds like I need to listen to her audiobook too. I wish that I had listened to the audiobook while reading. Having a toddler that needs me 25-7 and is running around and likes to rip pages out of books, I decided to go the audiobook route. So the book appreciates that. She I mean she talks about all the time. Like she's just she's moved so past the bullshit. Like she's just like, fuck it, here I am. I was pretending, I was lying to myself, to the world for so many years. And like, I just don't want to do that anymore. And I love that. I love that she allowed herself to be raw. I feel like a lot of these celebrities, when they go back through their memoirs, because I've had other friends listen, and I'm like, did they get emotional? And they were like, no, they're very professional, you know. And I was like, oh, but it's your life. This is your life you're talking about. So I'm all about it. I definitely suggest listening to the audiobook. It is even more moving, it sounds like it is so moving. I mean, there are points where I like like had to catch my own breath. Her memoir reads very conversationally like that. Like it feels like it would lint itself to actually being very well received as an audiobook. So last quick topic. So her title, like I said, is from the song True Colors by Cindy Lauper. And I couldn't help but think of the entire song when I read the title of her memoir. And so I just wanted to kind of share them. So the song starts you with the sad eyes, you with the sad eyes. Don't be discouraged. Oh, I realize it's hard to take courage. In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it all. And the darkness inside you can make you feel so. So small. I see your true colors, and that's why I love you. So don't be afraid to let them show. Your true colors. True colors are beautiful, like a rainbow. I think that's what she's asking us here to like love who she actually is instead of like who we thought Christina Applegate was. And I do. Me too. Not that it really matters. Because I think all she needs, honestly, all she needs is the love of her daughter and her husband and her friends and stuff. But I can't imagine being such a famous, iconic person and feeling like you've had this mask on, and then something so profound happening to you on all the levels mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. And just feeling like, no, they have to know who I am. They have to see me, see me, who I really am. Um, and I think we can all relate on a smaller level of like, like you said, like how do we do that in our day-to-day life? Who are we like hiding from? Why are we hiding ourselves away? It can feel scary and dark, but like you said, if you don't acknowledge it, like it will have unintended consequences. Let's get further into her memoir. She writes, I've played the character of Christina Applegate for so long. I am a troubled and broken and beautiful and smart and interesting and funny person, but I am not Christina Applegate. Anyone who truly knows me knows I am not Christina Applegate. So this is us, like I said, getting to know the real Christina Applegate, or Kiki, as she is called, by the people who know and love her best. She writes, one of the things I've begun to see more clearly is that I'm a survivor. And I think that's a really powerful statement. I think sometimes it can feel hard to own that you've survived something. You know, like does it feel like we're bragging or gloating, or do we not even want to acknowledge the pain and the hurt and the wound that we had to overcome? I don't know. Do you have an interesting, do you have a difficult relationship with that word? You've survived some stuff. Like, do you feel comfortable saying like I'm a survivor? I think it's hard because it can obviously lead to more questioning, but then it can also be perceived as haughty or like bragging, you know, there's this inherent guilt that's embedded in survivor's guilt. Yeah. And so it is, it's hard to come to terms with that, because really, in order to come to terms with that, you have to fully acknowledge that you've been through some tough shit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, that's definitely her acknowledging it. So, okay, let's start with Hollywood. We're gonna kind of save her childhood for the end. I had not realized how much dance was a part of her life. She was put into dance class when she was three. Her mother wanted her to have a positive addiction, and very quickly, Christina falls in love. She writes, It's impossible to overstate how important dance is to me, not just as an expression of my artistic nature, but as a kind of therapy that goes beyond talking, beyond closure, beyond making peace with the past. I love dance more than anything in my life. It calms me, inspires me, moves me, brings me into my full body, expresses all the hurt and anger and sorrow I've felt across the years. It made me sad that she doesn't really have that. She talks about how there are still some days where she can dance, but more often than not, she can't. And I feel like you probably understood this on a much deeper level than me, because you are also a dancer. And I honestly had no clue whatsoever that she had such an extensive dance background. Um, like literally started in dance at the same age that I started in dance. And like, you know, they always say, once a dancer, always a dancer. It's just like it's a part of you. It's like indelible, you know? Um, and dance is one of those forms of expression that really is impossible to like fake. However, you're feeling when you dance is very, it's being shown throughout your whole body and and face. I imagine that it's it it could almost be a relief, right? Because you're so almost taken out of your head because you're so in your body in a way that I don't think you can be in any other place. It's this very strange dichotomy of feeling very free and like wonderful, but also at the same time being very vulnerable. But somewhere in that mix, it can be very therapeutic because it presents the opportunity for catharsis and finding it in every single part of your body. And I imagine too, when she's so young and she's going through so much, you don't have the vote vocabulary, you don't have the words to articulate what you're feeling. It just feels like it was her way, like you said, this cathartic way to work through what she was feeling, what she was experiencing in a safe way where it was all for her. This was how she was able to work through, at least in a small way, what was happening to her. Definitely her therapy. Yeah. Yeah. It makes you wonder, I want like if she hadn't have had this, because she continues dancing, she says, like, even in between seasons on married with children, and just any time that she could, it was her church, it was her therapy. Yeah. She has dance studios built in all of her homes. I mean, that is so cool. I wish I would have realized that she was doing sweet charity on Broadway, which we'll get to, and like gone and seen her. I bet she was a revelation. I bet she was fantastic. I mean, she was nominated for a fucking Tony, so clearly. But yeah, it's a shame that we never that never translated to film. She was never presented with an opportunity to be a dancer in film. Cause I would have, I really would have loved to see that. Okay, let's get back to her beginnings in Hollywood. She writes about being five years old. She sees the handprints outside of the Groman's Theater and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She writes, I remember thinking this is magic. These people will be here forever. And I had this moment because that's what I used to think. You're immortalized when you're in film. You do exist forever, a part of you. And that was really one thing that, like, I had a major fear of dying when I was a kid. I don't know what it was, but I always understood the fragility of life. I always felt like it was right, it was like ready to be pulled away from me. And I just thought, yeah, there's something to this. I want people to know I was here. And now they can watch me in some really bad like lifetime movies and some B movie horrors.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

And you know what?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

They'll know I was here.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

So there you go.

Anchorman, Industry Worth, And Humor

SPEAKER_00 28:53

No, but like there was that's that sense, like when she was like, These people will be here forever. I was like, Oh my god, Christina, that was it for me. Yes, that was part of it for me. What drew you to Hollywood? Because I know we've talked about why you liked acting before, but like why Hollywood specifically? Honestly, it just looked like a lot. It looked like great fun. When I would go to the movies and at the end of the movie, and I would see the rolling credits and I would see how many people were part of this production, it really felt like being a part of something that was fun. It's funny that you brought up uh the parent trap because that movie specifically is what like solidified it for me. Like watching Lindsay Lohan in the Parent Trap, getting to play two characters, one with a British accent. Like, sign me up. It was everyone's dream. I know. It's so true. You know, those commercials were cheesy as hell. But Nicole Kimman was right. Like, there is a fucking magic when you go to the theater and you're having this experience simultaneously with other people and this large screen, it's it is magical. And of course, now, you know, being in the industry, we know it's not all fun and games and it's actually like full of predators and and mean people, like just like mean people. But when it works, when it's cohesive, when you're all cooking, I mean, it's the closest thing to experiencing magic besides like creating a little human inside my body, I guess. You know, that's pretty magical too. It's the best. I mean, it's the best. Okay, so back to Christina. She quickly becomes the breadwinner of her family. She writes, working was never a conscious decision I made. It was how we survived. I got good at it because I had to. I had no choice. Let's learn how she got her first job. She accompanies her mother to a job when she's three months old. She plays her mother's character's baby on Days of Our Lives, a little boy named Bert. And then she says, I was asked back for another episode. My mother was not, which was pretty funny. She gets her SAG card. So, for anyone who doesn't know, SAG is our union screen actors guild, and you have to have a membership with the union in order to get kind of like the big role. So you wanted your SAG card. That was the way to do it. And she's five when she gets it doing radio ads for Kmart. And at seven, she was earning real money. And she writes that she never stopped working until MS. She writes, at a very young age, working was my identity, my everything. Being on set was where I felt most comfortable. I had to be someone I wasn't. And I found in the guise of a character, I could protect the little scared me. That world was organized and had rules. I got to escape into something I wasn't. It is an escape. It's an escape. And for her, a very welcome escape. She writes, and never once have I ever wished I hadn't been a performer. Because if I hadn't, I'd have been dead. I've watched my friends struggle their whole lives because of how we were raised in that canyon, Laurel Canyon. But I always had work, always had someplace to go. It does feel like, I mean, she's very talented and she was an adorable little girl. So you understand like why she got these roles, but it feels very serendipitous that from a very young age when she was already experiencing so much trauma, I mean violent trauma, she did have this safe haven. Like, thank God. Thank God. She just grew up so fast. And what a thing to recognize too, like I'd be dead if I wasn't working. And it's so interesting for me to read about how she kind of grew to despise, you know, Christina Applegate, the character, when it feels like Christina Applegate saved her. Yeah. And I get it. Like I get because of who Christina represents started to represent to her this kind of false identity. Christina was just another character she played. So when did she get to be herself? I understand that. And she does come across really grateful of her career. She really does. But I loved how she also carried this sense of like, I don't know, it's not life or death. It's not rocket science. Like it's just fucking acting, you know? And you can tell that she had a lot of confidence in herself and her ability, which definitely comes from consistently working when you're five, right? Like work begets work. But I found it so interesting to read about this strength and this like fuck you attitude that she gave to Christina Applegate, the actress, all while struggling with body image, self-esteem, self-loathing, which we'll get more into. It is just, it's like the dichotomy that we we're we're walking contradictions. Yeah. But do we recognize it? Right. Do we know it? She was and still is just trying to survive. Like had to be working to survive, to provide for her mom and herself. But it's wild because you say that and I agree, but at the same point, she was not like, and so I had to get the job. You know, like it's so it's fascinating to me. There doesn't seem to be any desperation. Now, I do think that that comes from just like booking. She never talks about having a low moment where it seemed like it was all going to be taken away from her. And I think that was just luck, her luck, I guess. She seemed pretty bummed out about the um the Elle Woods thing. That was pretty funny. But you understood why she passed that up. And I mean, I like Christina would have been great in that, but like Reese's perfection. So and we have a bonus episode about Legally Blonde, its original source material, and more. So check that out if that's also one of your favorite movies. Okay, so she's working consistently, like I said, but she is extremely hard on herself about her looks. This is a threat that will continue until even at now it seems as she's writing the book, though she does seem to give less fucks about how she looks because she no longer has any control. She's just had to literally let that go. But that little voice inside her head never goes away. And that was really sad. And something that I got. I mean, not to this level, but it is really hard to silence that critic. And in Hollywood, especially, I get it. But it was so interesting because Kelly Bundy was an objectively haughty Mick Hotterson. Yeah. You are getting cast as literally the hottest chick on TV. Did you feel like you were pretty growing up? Do you feel comfortable saying, I'm a pretty woman, I'm attractive? Like I'm really honestly, I'm working on that because I don't want to be like 80 looking back and being like, damn, I wish I would have just thought I was pretty when I was younger. Like, fuck it. Yeah. Um, you know, I'll tell you something. I always had an inkling that I was cute because people would say that. And then when I got to high school, I didn't want to be cute anymore. I wanted to be, I didn't think that I was ever gonna be the hot girl, but I wanted to enhance my looks, you know, like get the highlights, wear the pants lower. Like what you wanted the edge, the edge that takes cute away.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

And I can specifically remember a time when I was crying. I think I was wearing pink overalls. I was wearing like pink, pink velvet overalls on the bleachers, crying.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

I don't want to be cute anymore. As I wear pink velvet overalls. I don't want to be juicy grossy anymore.

Sweet Charity And Relentless Grit

Bad Love, Violence, And Leaving

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Exactly, exactly. Also, what was weird, encouraging, I guess, but also like underhanded lead to like a slight was that a lot of guys older than me would would say something to the effect of you're you're gonna you're gonna bloom like after high school. Yeah. They were essentially saying like when you grow into yourself, you got potential kid, yeah, but not now. And so that was like but then it was also like now. Well, okay, so are you able to look into a mirror right now though and feel pretty and acknowledge that you're pretty? For the most part, yes. Sometimes, but not always. And there are times when I can very quickly admire how cute my outfit is or how I slayed my makeup, but then I can very quickly get into the the head tilting and picking apart all of the areas that could be better, just the critic, the nitpicky. We want our daughters to feel beautiful and pretty. We want our friends to feel beautiful and pretty, but then when it comes to us, it feels like it's narcissistic or something that's just taboo to like feel pretty or admit you're pretty. It's like that scene in Mean Girls when Regina George is like, Oh, like you're pretty, and Katie's like, Thank you. And she's like, Oh, so you think you're pretty? And it's like, well, is that wrong? Shouldn't we all like it's so messed up? It's I'm trying to just like let go of other people's judgment on it because I'm the only one that has to live with my face for the rest of my life, so I might as well like it. But yeah, because it broke my heart. Christina writes, not one time have I looked in a mirror, even all done up, and thought, oh, I look good. Like, I don't want to feel that. God, she's a beautiful woman. I can't believe not once. I feel like there's just so much internalized shame as a result from the trauma she faced as a child. This was an effect of that. And we'll get to more of that at the end. But feeling abandoned by her father, being sexually abused, domestic violence, and then the one place where it seemed like she's sort of winning, this really pivotal moment happens to her and it changes how she feels about herself and her acting career for the rest of her life. And she's fairly young. She seemed to be like, what, 11, 12-ish when this happened? She writes, what others might have taken as just an innocuous comment became for me a Mount Rushmore size moment of shame. So she's booking all these jobs and she writes that acting was her survival, like we said. It's not like she thinks she's super hatched or God's gift the world or anything like that. Okay. Like she makes that very clear. But she is self-conscious, you can tell. She never wants to come across like she's bragging. I think she doesn't say this, but it seems like, you know, she's understanding that her friends aren't booking as much as she is, or like, you know, I think she's understanding, like, this is going really well for me, and maybe it's not going really well. And obviously, she talks about growing up in the canyon and the life that her friends were living there. Like, I think she understood that something good was happening for her, but she didn't feel comfortable acknowledging that. And so she tells her friend, hey, if I ever get weird about what I'm doing, like, let me know. And one day they're walking near 20th Century Fox, and Christina just very innocently is like, Oh, hey, I live there because she's working there a lot. And her friend's like, You're doing it. That's exactly how I imagined her friend turning to her, by the way. Oh, oh, oh, you heard this. Did she really like? How did she have the friend say it? You know, it's funny because the way I interpreted it or the way that she read it was not as biting as I had like pictured, maybe. So yeah, I mean, Christina herself, she says it was a very innocuous, like, it shouldn't have, you know, it seems like she's feeling like it shouldn't have affected her as much as it did. But it does. And it's just, it's a realization that, like, A, the things that we say can hurt people without us knowing. But also, it reminds me more of like, and I've said this a million times on the podcast before, your triggers are not your fault, but they are your responsibility. So clearly, this little thing, this oh, you're being too happy about your life was a huge trigger for her. And she never realized that she needed to understand why and take responsibility for like that aspect of it. She didn't need to take responsibility for the trauma. What happened to her was not her fault. But like you said, this idea that there's unintended consequences when we don't deal with it, that's what where the responsibility comes in. Christina writes, since that day, I have never spoken again about my accomplishments, not a single day. I don't boast because that girl whispered in my ear and still whispers every day, you're doing it. I've often felt great shame for what I do. And again, this made me so sad. And also I was like, oh, honey, like I would kill for your career. So many people would kill for your career. Damn, you didn't allow yourself that because you felt so much shame. That's why I keep taking the lesson that I that I have is like, figure this shit out before it's too late. Figure it out. It's really heartbreaking. Yeah. All right, so she shares a lot more fun anecdotes sprinkled with some more shame and self-loathing and body dysmorphia. I loved learning that Will Farrell and Adam McKay gave her part of their salary so that she would do Anchorman. And that's kind of become like the big head, one of the big headlines from the memoir. Because she was offered an insultingly low amount of money for it. So good for them. Yeah. Good for them. Yeah, good for them. Like, actually, love you guys, had a great time, but that's too low. Like, yeah. And that was what was so interesting to me. How like some in some way she really did know her worth and her value.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

Yeah.

Signs, Loss, And The Unexplainable

SPEAKER_00 41:57

I loved reading about how she felt so uncomfortable improving with these geniuses. I also love my lines, but when she finally learned it, she flew. I mean, she's hilarious in Anchorman. That whole that whole part was really fun to read about. Yeah. I thought the stuff about Brad Pitt was hilarious. And then I and then I went the pictures and of the dress. And oh yes. That's what I'm saying. She didn't look in the mirror that night and think, how do you not look at Brad Pitt at that point? Which, like problematic as that man is, I mean, really gross, he was gorgeous. Gorgeous. How do you not look to him and say, hmm, he's with me? That must mean something. I don't know. Yeah, she does some fun name-dropping about who she dates, including ditching Brad Pitt at the 1994 MTV movie awards. But before we get into more of her dating life, I just we have to talk about this sweet charity moment because oh my God, it just really shows her her resilience and her grit. And she definitely had a lot of resilience and grit to get through her life for sure. As we've talked about, she has this immense love for dance. And she calls Bob Fossey her hero. And she gets the opportunity to audition for the lead role of Charity Hope Valentine in the revival of Sweet Charity. And she talks about this 12-hour audition, which I can't even imagine, to be honest. They're practicing for Broadway, and it's the first night of the previews. She breaks her foot in the first number. And she writes about how all of her life she's had these wonderful things happen to her, only for them to be quickly followed by something terrible. She can kind of point to this throughout her memoir a few times. And this is a moment she points to. I think that that's life. I think there are highs and lows. And I also felt like this wasn't a moment for me because yes, okay, okay, she couldn't have, she maybe couldn't have broken her foot. But like that wasn't the end of this story. She tells herself, I'm going to work my ass off to stay in Broadway shape. She swims every day, keeping her lungs strong, strong and healthy. She says, I'm gonna heal this bone in time. Like, I am gonna play Charity Valentine on Broadway. And she talks about like visualizing. Um, at this point, she's involved with the Agape Church in Los Angeles. She brings it up minimally also in her memoir, but you can Google it. It's kind of this, it's a church that marries like visualization and meditation manifestation with like love and and being God's love and God is just kind of love. So the the church leader kind of tells her, like, visualize your doctor saying, I have never seen a bone heal this quickly. Visualize that, visually. And then she writes about how she goes to the doctor. And the doctor says, I've never seen a bone heal this quickly. I mean, whatever you think of visualization of manifestation, like sometimes moments like that happen. Believe me, I've tried to will myself an Oscar win by now, like a million times and far-fetched, but it was a cool moment. It was a cool moment, definitely. And so she does. She comes back, she has to prove to the producers that she can do it. So she dances the entire show, sings the entire show, acts the entire show solo with the choreographer to prove she can do it. They're like, fine, come back, only to find that the show is closing. No, because nobody's come to it. So she puts up half a million dollars of her own money to keep the show afloat. She also writes, like, I didn't do it just for my own ego. I did it to save everyone's jobs. And I I believe that because honey don't have an ego at this point. Like, when did she ever? And she gets nominated for a Tony. But she doesn't tell anyone about it because she doesn't feel like she should. So insane. Christina! Throughout the book, I noticed like, I know that it comes from a good place. I think she is a good, kind person, but the amount of responsibility that she puts upon herself to make others happy and to make sure that other people are okay. I mean, it's it's it's admirable, but at what cost? What cost? I mean, yeah. And we're gonna talk about that specifically with her mom almost coming up. She writes this. She writes, I'm cursed. It's a feeling I've had my entire life. Something good happens, and then boom. As I think you can tell by now, I'm a big disavower of myself. I wonder how my life would have been if that hadn't been the case. I guess I'll never know. But I like to think there's an alternate me somewhere, unburdened by this self-doubt. God, what a sad real, another like sad realization that I think she's sharing because she wants other people to have these realizations sooner if they need to. Yeah. Okay, so let's get to her love life. She picks a lot of bad boys to like date and be with. She writes, I'm going to fix you. I'm going to save you. I'm going to help you. That's that's what she was attracted to. She wanted to save them. And I thought it was just ironic because she wasn't saying that to herself.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

Exactly.

Cancer, Costs, And Public Masks

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah. She shares about Brad Pitt, like we said, but I think her chapters on the abusive multi-year relationship she had in the 90s, I think those are the among the most important in her memoir. Absolutely. Christina shares so much with us, including her own admission of not understanding why she stayed, how she couldn't leave. And it got really scary. He was incredibly controlling, verbally abusive, physically abusive. She thought he was going to kill her. At one point, it seemed he would have killed her if she hadn't have thought very quickly to call her security guard. She pretends she's calling her mom. At this point, he had poured an entire bottle of vodka down her throat and she pretends to call her mom so that she can be like, oh, that way she thinks I'm okay. Because we ended the call, you know, so she doesn't come here, but instead she calls her security guard and he, thank God, understood what she was trying to tell him and comes and saves her life. And she never names this man, which I thought was really interesting. She doesn't even give him a fake name. She redacts his names in like her journals. But it's he's just he, but you can look him up. It's not that hard. You can literally Google who Kristin Applegate was dating. Did you do that? No, who is it? We're not gonna say his name because we could be wrong, but there's the internet has a man that she's dating. She and this guy is like married now. Well, he had been married, he's divorced, he has kids. It's so it's just I don't want to speculate, I don't even want to talk about this guy much longer, but I just find myself wondering like, does that behavior change? Who is he now? I don't know. It was extremely fucked up, and it is so weird. It's just crazy to me that you can have such violent, toxic people in your life, and then thank God, thank God she got out of it, which when you read her memoir, it's a lot of up and downs. And even you can tell she's right there with you being like, Why didn't why wasn't this enough? Why wasn't this enough? Why wasn't this the turning point until she finally is able to escape him? But then, like, he goes on. We also talk about the fact that that deep, nasty scar that she suddenly developed was from him throwing a lighter at her face. Do you know how hard you have to throw a lighter at someone's face to literally cut them open? Yeah. She kind of credits David. How do you say his last name? Boreans. Boreanes. Boreanes, also known as Angel, with helping her finally break out of this cycle because she just needed to like date someone else who is a good, kind man. And she was finally able to get out of it. But it was tumultuous. And it was important to read because she basically says, she writes, no one should shame a woman for staying in a terrible situation like the one I faced. But when we're in it, we really don't know what to do. We're scared. There should be no shame in staying. Please, we are already too hard on ourselves, but there is no survival either. What a powerful sentence.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

What a way to get people who don't understand what that experience is like to understand it. And women and men who are experiencing it, just like maybe a little wake up. You can't save this monster. You can't change this monster. All right. All right. Okay. And I have to mention this because this is wild. So she dates this man who ends up ODing wet right after they kind of break up. And she talks about how he comes to visit her and other people at 3 15 a.m. Girl, I kid you not, the morning before I went and got her book, I woke up at 3 15. Oh, you did in the morning. I did. And you know why I I remembered because that was the night of the blood moon eclipse. Oh, which was at its strength at 3:33 a.m. My yoga teacher had told me that Monday, Monday during our class. And so I went outside and I saw the partial eclipse, the blood moon. But it was 3:15. Whoa. And she says that she thinks this is when her friend pops up a lot because that's when apparently the veil between life and death is the thinnest. Who do you think was visiting you? Not him. Somebody who wanted me to see the blood moon. I don't know who. Isn't that crazy? It's wild. Wow. I know. Had to share. Okay, let's get into her health journey. So she writes about her breast cancer diagnosis, the double mastectomy, and the recovery. She shares her journal entries from that time. And those are really poignant and powerful passages. And again, she lets her words speak for themselves. And she also is able to put us into this experience in a way, if we haven't experienced recovery from a double mastectomy or a cancer diagnosis, to just understand. She writes about creating a foundation called Right Action for Women, which aims to cover the costs of services for high-risk women like MRIs for dense breasts. And she writes that in its lifetime, it was able to sponsor hundreds of tests. So it's unclear if this is still something, but I'm glad she included it because she brings up this point that like testing is so fucking expensive and insurance often fails to cover these potentially like life-saving preemptive measures, which make no sense. And it feels very frustrating and cruel. So I'm glad that she brought that up. And I do think that this is something that, like, as this as a country and a society, like we need to start reckoning with. Like, why are we not covering tests that can find cancers and issues way earlier? It just makes no sense. Is that stuff should be way cheaper than like the cost of chemo or radiation or surgery, right? Yeah. I mean, it just furthers the narrative or the idea that it's all about money and these health companies want us to stay sick so that they can continue making money.

unknown 52:35

Yeah.

MS, Dead To Me, And Collapse

SPEAKER_00 52:37

It's the sickest thing of all. It's the sickest thing of all. It really is. She also writes this but there are ways I know I hurt people instead of helped, both others and myself. And she goes on to tell us about how ashamed she feels about going on Oprah and doing an interview with Robin Roberts, where she pretends that she is just strong, says that diagnosis was a blessing, just focuses on being uplifting when really, she writes now, she should have told the truth. She writes, I was acting like a little Miss Warrior, but that's not how I felt. Yeah. So having gone through a similar bout with cancer myself, I think that in order to get through what is arguably going to be one of the worst times of your life, it really does come down to survival and doing whatever you have to do to survive. Oftentimes you feel pressure to push through it and be strong and be a beacon of hope for others and be a beacon of hope for others. A warrior princess, if you will, is what I called myself. However, that can that can be damaging in the long run because you're not truly dealing with or fully feeling the weight of how dire the situation is. And so this pressure that she feels to be uplifting is is wild because that's not her job. Again, like taking on these responsibilities, these massive responsibilities. Um when it when that's not she's she doesn't she doesn't owe that to us. Yeah. That's well said. She speaks about how she likes to be in control. And I suppose that this responsibility she feels comes from a place of I don't know, showing people controlling the narrative in a way, right? Like and and and showing people what she thinks they want or like need to hear. Like she could she could also just I don't know, her experience on Oprah, she didn't have to do the show. She writes that like it still was a good experience because her doctor was able to come on Oprah with her and and share a lot of information. And so she was really proud of that. But you're right, but I think this is so indicative of how she's lived her life, her entire life. Fake it till you make it, be strong. She's so hard on herself. Yeah. Yes, she's a public figure and she has a platform and she wants to inform people, bring awareness, and that's great. But the most important thing is her taking care of herself. Yeah. If you're going through something like that and you have to and you tell yourself, I am strong, I am a warrior, and that works for you, and that's your truth, then that's great. But what she's saying here is that was not her truth. And she had an opportunity to go on to these national shows and say, I'm hurting. This is hard, this is painful, which is something that women have a really hard time doing. Like you said, we take on a lot of other people's burdens and the weight of other people's emotions. And there's also this idea, I mean, a very real recognization that, like, that's not what the world wants to hear. So, how can we collectively, as people in the world, encourage other people to show their pain and allow to see that pain? I mean, I've talked about this on the show with other people. Like, people don't like to grieve, people don't like to talk about death. We don't, we like to pretend la la la la la, these things. See, this woman, she battled cancer, she beat it. We don't like the stories where they don't. Because what does that say for us? But that's the truth. That's life. You can only have light with the darkness. Light does not exist without darkness. She writes this I think women feel less alone and more empowered if someone tells them the truth. Amen. Okay, let's get into her MS diagnosis. So, multiple sclerosis is a chronic, unpredictable autoimmune disease of the central nervous system, brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves, where the immune system attacks the protective myelin sheath covering nerve fiber, nerve fibers. This damage disrupts communication between the brain and body, leading to symptoms like vision loss, pain, fatigue, and impaired coordination. And that was from Google. During the final season of filming Dead to Me, a show in character that Christina writes is like the best work she's ever done.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

And she finally admits it. She literally writes, like, and I'm finally admitting it, and of course it's too late.

Motherhood, Priorities, And Presence

SPEAKER_00 57:01

The one she's been waiting for her entire career, she's diagnosed with MS. She details the honestly beautiful and very unHollywood way that they collectively get through that final season of Dead to Meet every single person below the line and above. She works through the pain. Talk about grit. She writes, I collapsed when it was done, and I've been collapsing ever since. And she talks about the irony of it. She writes, it was the first time people saw I was good at what I can do, and it was all being taken away. And now she's living day to day. She writes, some days I can bear to dance, others I fear the wheelchair. She's found a community. She has a podcast with Jamie Lynn Sigler called Messi, capital M, capital S in the middle, MS. She doesn't sugarcoat this horrible disease and one doesn't want you to ask, How are you, Christina? Though she's gotten better at answering. She writes, it's much easier to answer when you don't worry about what the other person wants to hear. She writes, Some days my life hurts so bad that I just sit here and cry, except if Sadie needs me. You are a mom. Have you found a new sense of strength, a renewed sense of strength in being your daughter's mother? Things become very clear. Priorities become very clear. And a lot of things start to not matter as much. She's my my main priority. She's my everything. I just, I just am so excited by her every time I see her. I I miss her when she's taking her naps. I miss her during the nighttime when she goes to bed. Becoming a parent is has been a very, very rewarding role. And they've actually found that women's brain chemistry change changes when you become a mother. I can feel that. Yeah. No, it's wild. And yeah, I think you're right. There's just this sense of like, it's not about me anymore. It's about them. And when you make the choice to bring the child into the world and you choose to be a good parent, the way that Christina so clearly chooses to be. I mean, you can tell she's a damn good mom. Not, you know, not without the day, you know, the moments and the days, but it seems, you know, she just their relationship is very beautiful the way that she writes about it. And you just, you do what you gotta do for them. For them. Oh my gosh. I love the point where she was driving her daughter to school and she got out or she went to go out, get out of the car, and she was like, I don't think I can get out of the car. And Christina goes, Why? And she goes, Because I'm having too much fun with you.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

I know. I was like, please, can that be my life when my daughter's that age too? I mean, it's beautiful.

Studies, Links, And Hard Questions

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Like the day that my daughter says something like that to me, I will melt. Yeah, that's it. That's all. That's what you do it for. No, that was a beautiful moment. I'm glad that she recognizes that. Cause, like, you know, we've all talked about there's been a lot of disavowing. She writes it, she disavows herself a lot, but she doesn't do that in motherhood. Good for her. This part was wild. She writes about, like I mentioned earlier, a recent study suggesting a link between childhood trauma and an increased chance of developing MS. The 2022 study of 80,000 Norwegian women, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, noted three kinds of abuse of children that were possible factors in a subsequent diagnosis of the disease: sexual, emotional, and physical. Close to 20% of the women women admitted to suffering one form of abuse as a child, but staggeringly, there was a 93% chance of an MS diagnosis if a child had been exposed to all three, which Christina experienced growing up. There were a couple of random things before we get into her childhood trauma. She helped form the pussycat dolls. That was so random. So random, wonderful, but so random. Incredible. Okay. So I bump on two things. One, the relationship with her mom, which we're about to get into. Number two, I did not like the casual Johnny Depp mentions. I just like knowing too much about him, especially Christina having experienced domestic violence. I thought they were weird. It didn't further the story. She could have just talked about the Viper Room. She didn't have to bring up Johnny Depp. I don't know. It was weird to me. What do you think? Am I am I overthinking it? I just don't like that man. Maybe. So anytime I hear I see his name, I'm just like, ugh. Yeah, I mean, I think that they just basically like grew up together in the industry together. I know, but no acknowledgement of like I know who he is. It's like if I grew up with someone like that, I don't think I'd be putting them in my memoir. Especially if like they didn't have like he wasn't significant. It's just like his name is in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

Right?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:02

I don't know.

Mother, Father, And Forgiveness

Meaning, Attention, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

Anyways, yeah. Okay, let's get to her childhood and then we'll wrap this up. She writes that her mother always told her she was a sad little girl and that she was born that way. But Christina argues that that's not true. She writes, I was introduced to the weight of the world much too early in life. And also, that's a fucked up thing to say to your kid. Like, I'm sorry. You are you are a sad girl. Always have been. Although sadness is not bad, it's like weird. I feel I feel all sorts of weird ways about it. Let's try to like unpack it together here as we can. And also just listeners know that like I'm bringing my own shit to this memoir as we all bring our own stuff. So, like, if you think I'm wack-a-doodle, then hey, whatever. At least we're talking about it. Okay, so we learn about her extremely tumultuous and unstable childhood. We've it was filled with neglect, abuse, and fear, death of friends, murder nearby. Her father abandoned her and her mother when Christina was a newborn, around eight months old. Now look, we both have children. I can't even imagine. I mean, you are still in it at eight months. In it. I was I was a mess. Yeah. And Nancy, her mother, was pursuing an entertainment career as like a singerslash actress. So really very similar to if our husbands would have up and left us. We don't have this job that we can return to. We don't have income coming in. We don't have benefits, like very, very scary. Okay. So I just want to put that up front that like I acknowledge that her mother was put in a very difficult place. And I do think that she tried the best that she could with what she had to work with, which as far as we know were her own mental health problems and problems with addiction, which Christina does mention. Like, okay, so I acknowledge that. But overall, Christina gives her mom a lot of grace, a lot of forgiveness, but there seems to be no accountability. Again, it felt like Christina was taking on the burden of, well, my mom did her best. Either that's just what she needs to like, that's the end of the sentence for her, and she can't go any deeper. But like when you read about the stuff that went down and the ways that Christina, I mean, Christina was left with teenage girls. One of them makes Christina go down on her when Christina's five years old. Five years old. If I heard that that had happened to my kid, I would be apologizing and on my knees wailing for forgiveness, even though obviously I didn't know that was happening. And that was just really like she even writes like her mom gave her Valium. She writes the issues of the time became her issues, and her issues became mine. Yeah. So Christina does acknowledge this codependent relationship that she has with her mom that I feel I personally feel stems from her being so young and seeing her mom on essentially on the brink of death, scared for her own life, scared to death that she's gonna lose her mom. Her mom has been altered mentally, psychologically by substances that she was unaware of. Like she thought that she was taking a sleeping aid and she was really taking heroin. Yeah. Like no, she had she had this very toxic man in her life whom Christina's like, I hope it was painful when he died of lung cancer. Like you can the love for her daughter seeps off the pages and the hate for this man seeps off the pages. I don't know, and maybe I get it a little bit because I love my own my own mom in similar ways, despite the fact that you know our relationship was fraught at times. But yes, she just has the most unconditional love for her mom. And no, I don't think it's fair that she was forced to have this understanding of like how vulnerable her mom was. Like, again, not not her job. But that's what she did to survive. Yeah. I don't want to be a bitch about it. I was upset on Christina's behalf. I was like, you were failed. Yeah. You were failed. She was the breadwinner at a young age. Like, but you know what? It's not my life. Christina's making peace with this however she needs to. Maybe it wouldn't fly for me. And maybe I need to reflect on why it wouldn't fly for me. Like maybe that's a bigger question I can ask myself. But I just thought it was really interesting. Thought it was really interesting. So I had to bring it up because going through when you read what she experienced, and then in the end, you know, she she writes this about her mom. She is my hero. Our relationship, though sometimes fraught, has long settled into love and acceptance. But even back then, she taught me what it means to survive something terrible and emerge into a kind of freedom. I now know just how strong she had to be for both of us. I finally understand what it means to put your own needs to one side because you love someone so much that all you can think about is their happiness. It took becoming a mother myself to fully comprehend just what my mother achieved. And I think there's something there too. I think either when you become a mother yourself, you see your own mother in a different light or a different shadow. Some of us see our parents in their shadows, maybe when we become mothers. She was surviving so much that her mother had to be her safe place. And like sometimes you just can't go deeper than that because you don't want to risk losing your safe place. And that's okay too. It seems like her mother really loves her. You know, it's not like her mom's abusive or toxic, and you're like, no, see her for who she is. You know, it seems like her mother is this solid ground for her now. And so who cares what Alex Franca thinks of their relation? You know what I'm saying? At the end of the day. Yeah. But I just I wanted to explore that with you. Thank you so much. I feel like you brought up such good points because I was, as I was reading it, it was something that just kept coming up. So I was like, I have to talk about this. These are book club chats. Yeah. And I, you know, I felt I felt the same way about like kind of a lack of accountability. Yeah. I guess because I personally understand, I guess, the fear of losing your safe place and not wanting to speak ill of your safe place and just, I guess, being happy that they're still with us despite all of their flaws. Like she's a very, very forgiving person. Yeah. Let's talk about her dad, whom she also forgives. She writes about this really incredible thing. I wish that this was available to more people. I know it is, but it's expensive. She was able to go on that show, Who Do You Think You Are, and really trace back her father's ancestry. And she and her father come to realize on camera that he was told a very different story about growing up, told himself a very different story about growing up, and that his own life was full of neglect and abandonment. So she forgives him and she writes, We all might hope for some great coming to terms with those who've wronged us, in which the things we say or do heal forever the wounds we've inflicted or the wounds we've endured. But in the end, it might just be recognizing that something righteous and loving, in spite of having scant modeling to draw upon, that is enough. There it is. There it is. We're not really going to get too into too much of her spiritual journey, which she kind of like dabble, like she drops, you know, there's the chapter on Hawaii, how that was a very sacred, beautiful place for her. And obviously we know that her nickname, Kiki, came from her Hawaiian friends. But I really liked this quote. She writes, the question of intention has in recent years come to haunt me because the universe doesn't know your intention. It only knows where your attention is. And where has my attention always been? The negative. Have I brought all this on myself? Have I created all of this? Have I been walking around expecting the worst all the time, only to be proven right over and over again because the universe answered my energy? I wonder that too. I don't know. I don't know how much I subscribe to like, you know, the secret. This is kind of like the secret, right? But I do think that you see what you look for. And so it's almost like if work begets work, bad shit begets bad shit, good shit begets. It's like you just stay in whatever cycle, you come to expect what's already being thrown your way. And like she experienced so much bad shit from the go that, like, how could she even think to expect that something different was going to happen? Yeah. But you should. Yeah. Because like then you get to this point and you're like looking back, all I saw were the negatives, and maybe that's all that I was given because that's all that I was expecting. Yeah, I think it's like her memory to me was like a warning, kind of.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

Yeah.

Final Reflections And Who We Are

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

Not to be like super dramatic about it, but no, I I I completely agree with you. So she's told us her truth. She writes, I embrace my sad eyes, I've earned them. And she continues, alongside the need to confront the truth and enormity of all that I have lived through, a beautiful thing emerged. I've started to make a little sense of it, understand what happened, see patterns, discover meaning, find the love and acceptance and healing in it, and start to forgive myself, to give my young self, especially some slack for all the bad decisions and self-destructive behaviors. By working through it all on the page, I intend to release myself fully into a life of acceptance, hope, and joy. And I hope that's where she is. I think she finally acknowledged and shared a lot of truths, and that's incredibly commendable. And I think it's the first step in breaking out of shame. And I think she's still working through some stuff. It feels like she, like I said, she's exploring things with us as we move through her memoir. At one point, she's even wondering, like, what is this book about? You know, and and you're kind of right there with with her. You're like, this feels scary almost. Like, what it, what, what is your book through you sharing your experience, making me reflect on my life. She's like, all I'm asking you to do is take my hand and walk through this journey with me. I'm not saying that I'm gonna have some great realization or lesson at the end of it, the way some of these memoirs really do. Some of these women are like, let me tell you a tale and look at me now. She doesn't do that. I think you can use the hard moments in life as a way to double down on the negativity and say, you know what? Life sucks and this sucks and I suck, blah, blah, blah. Or, which is what I think she's encouraging us to do, you can take the time to reflect and see if there's anything you want to change about yourself before it's too late. I definitely recommend this memoir. It takes you on a journey. Like I was, I was on the roller coaster. One of the biggest takeaways is to spend more time with and on the people that you love and don't get weighed down by what other people think. I know it's like that's seemingly so easy. Yeah. But fuck it. We only have we have one life. We have one life to live. These are the days of our lives. What are you gonna do with them? I completely agree. I recommend this memoir too. Like she said, you're not necessarily gonna come out of it uplifted or hopeful. You're gonna be thinking, you're gonna be sitting with this one for a while. You're gonna have some fun, little like Hollywood tidbits takeaway, but that's not you're gonna be sitting with this. Shame is not worth living in. And if you feel ashamed about anything, anything, examine it. It's worth it to lead to a more hopefully happy, peaceful life. And we all deserve real happiness. And it's okay to feel good about yourself. It's also okay to embrace the parts of your life that are sad, the darkness. It's only human. It's only human. So I'm gonna leave us all with this. Christina ends her memoir with three sentences, and these are the three that broke me. Who is Christina Applegate, really? And she writes, I am Sadie's mother. I am Kiki, and that's where I leave you. Who are you? Who are you? Lizzie, thank you so much for just taking in this book and quickly sitting down with me and having a book club chat. You brought so much goodness to the table, had a lot of laughs. It was a joy and a pleasure. I always appreciate you. I love you. Happy weekend. Love you too. Have the best weekend. Bye.