Christina Applegate Now Cringes Over ‘Married With Children’ Audience Lusting for Her, Says Kelly Bundy Role Worsened Her Anorexia: ‘I Had to Be Skinny. I Was Size 0’
Christina Applegate Now Cringes Over ‘Married With Children’ Audience Lusting for Her, Says Kelly Bundy Role Worsened Her Anorexia: ‘I Had to Be Skinny. I Was Size 0’
>”I read the script and thought it was trash. To me, and to my mom, it read like a bunch of poorly written potty humor. I’d turned down ‘Married …,’ so the pilot featured another kid in the role of Kelly, but it just didn’t work so they came back to me. The casting director sent me a VHS of the pilot, and my mom and I reluctantly watched it one evening. I’m not sure what we thought we’d see, or why we even watched it in the first place as I was dead set against it. Boy, how much we wanted to hate it. We sat there like two little snotty actory assholes who’d spent their lives doing Shakespeare. And then, as the show played, we realized we could not stop laughing. I looked at my mom. She looked at me. ‘Fuck!’ I said. ‘It’s funny. It’s good.’”
>”I dug myself into a hole with that character, though, because I had to be skinny. 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.”
>“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. 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.”
>“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. That’s a good thing: It’s hard enough for young women to thrive in a world of appearances.”
>“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.”
ROBtimusPrime1995 on
And judging by the way actors look today, Hollywood hasn’t learned a single thing. In fact, they are tripling down on it.
Necroban77 on
I love that show.
Accomplished-Head449 on
It is really awkward trying to rewatch this show. It’s like they had the audience from Maury every time
Sprinkle_Puff on
That’s funny too because the early seasons are not nearly as funny as the later seasons. And Kelly as a character starts off a bit different then when she transformed into the sex symbol. Applegate completely just nailed the character of Kelly, I mean she was hilarious
AdvisorEfficient3021 on
I’ve heard enough about her. Next.
Efficient_Opinion107 on
That is not skinny on the picture.
Infinite-Storage-638 on
The episode with Milla Jovovich is abominable.
tommybare on
Look, that show made me into a man. And I was only 8 years old at the time.
lanceturley on
I like Christina Applegate, but it’s kind of hard to take anything she says about the show seriously after she claimed that Kelly was really a virgin.
btoned on
She’s also worth $25 million and can manage her current physical disability LEAGUES better than an average putz.
I’m sure she doesn’t cringe over that net worth that the show ultimately allowed at the genesis of her career.
Cannot stand these takes…It. Was. A. Different. Time.
RobertTx57 on
I actually didn’t watch the show because of her over-sexualized role. Just felt creepy… I was only a few years older.
sevargmas on
> “To me, and to my mom, it read like a bunch of poorly written potty humor,”
I mean, yeah, that’s what it was. It was a simple show with redundant crude jokes. Don’t overestimate your audience.
> 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.”
The same can be said for men as well. There aren’t many ugly actors anymore. Even men have to be perfect looking and beefcakes. Even ugly male roles now are simply played by beautiful people made to look less beautiful.
bliceroquququq on
I mean, fine, but there is something off-putting to me about women who became celebrities largely because they are phenomenally attractive, who then turn around and lambast the audiences that made them famous.
The male equivalent of this would be like if Chris Hemsworth, once he has gotten a bit old and flabby, complains about how badly he was sexualized as “Thor”, and how hard working out was for him, and building all those muscles, and having women swooning over him.
Poor you.
hiptones on
It’s tough, the pressure that’s put on actresses to maintain what could be considered an unhealthy weight. I know there are some roles that require actors to look like action figures, but they have more opportunities available than normal looking women.
Octavia9 on
It definitely fueled my eating disorder. As a 8-12 year old girl watching I through that was how thin I needed to be.
Checkers-Chess234 on
Everybody is a victim. Without this show she’d never have the career she had.
Difficult_Pirate3294 on
It seems to me that was her breakout role. We may not even know who she is, had it not been for Al and his family.
20 Comments
Applegate:
>”I read the script and thought it was trash. To me, and to my mom, it read like a bunch of poorly written potty humor. I’d turned down ‘Married …,’ so the pilot featured another kid in the role of Kelly, but it just didn’t work so they came back to me. The casting director sent me a VHS of the pilot, and my mom and I reluctantly watched it one evening. I’m not sure what we thought we’d see, or why we even watched it in the first place as I was dead set against it. Boy, how much we wanted to hate it. We sat there like two little snotty actory assholes who’d spent their lives doing Shakespeare. And then, as the show played, we realized we could not stop laughing. I looked at my mom. She looked at me. ‘Fuck!’ I said. ‘It’s funny. It’s good.’”
>”I dug myself into a hole with that character, though, because I had to be skinny. 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.”
>“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. 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.”
>“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. That’s a good thing: It’s hard enough for young women to thrive in a world of appearances.”
>“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.”
And judging by the way actors look today, Hollywood hasn’t learned a single thing. In fact, they are tripling down on it.
I love that show.
It is really awkward trying to rewatch this show. It’s like they had the audience from Maury every time
That’s funny too because the early seasons are not nearly as funny as the later seasons. And Kelly as a character starts off a bit different then when she transformed into the sex symbol. Applegate completely just nailed the character of Kelly, I mean she was hilarious
I’ve heard enough about her. Next.
That is not skinny on the picture.
The episode with Milla Jovovich is abominable.
Look, that show made me into a man. And I was only 8 years old at the time.
I like Christina Applegate, but it’s kind of hard to take anything she says about the show seriously after she claimed that Kelly was really a virgin.
She’s also worth $25 million and can manage her current physical disability LEAGUES better than an average putz.
I’m sure she doesn’t cringe over that net worth that the show ultimately allowed at the genesis of her career.
Cannot stand these takes…It. Was. A. Different. Time.
I actually didn’t watch the show because of her over-sexualized role. Just felt creepy… I was only a few years older.
> “To me, and to my mom, it read like a bunch of poorly written potty humor,”
I mean, yeah, that’s what it was. It was a simple show with redundant crude jokes. Don’t overestimate your audience.
> 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.”
The same can be said for men as well. There aren’t many ugly actors anymore. Even men have to be perfect looking and beefcakes. Even ugly male roles now are simply played by beautiful people made to look less beautiful.
I mean, fine, but there is something off-putting to me about women who became celebrities largely because they are phenomenally attractive, who then turn around and lambast the audiences that made them famous.
The male equivalent of this would be like if Chris Hemsworth, once he has gotten a bit old and flabby, complains about how badly he was sexualized as “Thor”, and how hard working out was for him, and building all those muscles, and having women swooning over him.
Poor you.
It’s tough, the pressure that’s put on actresses to maintain what could be considered an unhealthy weight. I know there are some roles that require actors to look like action figures, but they have more opportunities available than normal looking women.
It definitely fueled my eating disorder. As a 8-12 year old girl watching I through that was how thin I needed to be.
Everybody is a victim. Without this show she’d never have the career she had.
It seems to me that was her breakout role. We may not even know who she is, had it not been for Al and his family.
Oh fuck off….
But them paychecks were ok?