Christina Applegate is looking back at some dark times in her personal life.
“My mom always said, ‘I never met a junkie I didn’t like.’ And that kind of was how I rolled,” Applegate, 54, shared in an interview with People published on Tuesday, February 24. “I never was with anyone who had a real job. I was always with these broken birds that I wanted to fix. I just always thought I could do it.”
She added, “And you know what? You can’t. It’s like, if I can be a lesson to anyone.”
Applegate was in a long-term, physically abusive relationship that started during her teenage years. The relationship came after Applegate experienced a particularly difficult upbringing in California’s Laurel Canyon.
“I think I had kind of the worst situation from 3 to 7, but there was stuff like that going on in all our homes,” she recalled. “Single moms, men coming in and out, drugs. It’s always fun to see your mom crying on the floor and you not being taken care of.”
Applegate has been candid about her mom, Nancy Priddy, who struggled with addiction issues.
“My mom, as wonderful as she is — also lovingly, Nancy Priddy, I love you so much, but your tools were a little off,” Applegate said during an April 2025 episode of her “MeSsy” podcast. “But instinctively, as parents, you’re either going to right the wrongs of them before or take what they have.”
Applegate noted during the same podcast episode that her upbringing impacted her own experience as a mother. The actress shares daughter Sadie (born in 2011) with husband Martyn LeNoble.
The Married … With Children star is set to explore her upbringing even further in her new memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, set to be released next month.
“We all have come from somewhere, some places more painful than others, and it’s what you do with it, I guess,” Applegate told People on Tuesday. “This is not an inspirational book, by any means. But it can inspire.”
Applegate discussed the book via Instagram in October 2025.
“Thank you all for sharing your love with me this past week as I share my life with you. My memoir is about survival and all the things that I never told anyone: the good stuff, the terrible stuff, the hilarious stuff, the shitty sad stuff,” Applegate captioned an Instagram post at the time. “Things some of my closest friends don’t know. You all mean everything to me. Thank you for reading. Peace and blessings.”
Applegate is also set to detail her ongoing multiple sclerosis battle in the book. (The actress announced in 2021 that she had been diagnosed with MS.)
The book “is about a little girl with sad eyes who ended up becoming Christina Applegate,” she told People. “And she still has those sad eyes. But she’s a stronger, different, resilient human being. And that’s really kind of my story.”
Elsewhere in her interview, Applegate added: “My life isn’t wrapped up with a bow. People’s lives, sorry for lack of a better term, f***ing suck sometimes. So I’m being as honest and raw as I possibly can.”
