Christina Applegate is looking back at some dark times in her personal life.
“My mom all the time said, ‘I never met a junkie I didn’t like.’ And that sort 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 an actual job. I used to be all the time with these broken birds that I desired to fix. I just all the time thought I could do it.”
She added, “And what? You may’t. It’s like, if I is usually a lesson to anyone.”
Applegate was in a long-term, physically abusive relationship that began during her teenage years. The connection got here after Applegate experienced a very difficult upbringing in California’s Laurel Canyon.
“I believe I had sort of the worst situation from 3 to 7, but there was stuff like that occurring in all our homes,” she recalled. “Single mothers, men coming out and in, drugs. It’s all the time fun to see your mom crying on the ground and also 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 really like you a lot, but your tools were a little bit 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’ve.”
Applegate noted throughout 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 ready to explore her upbringing even further in her recent memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, set to be released next month.
“All of us have come from somewhere, some places more painful than others, and it’s what you do with it, I suppose,” Applegate told People on Tuesday. “This will not be an inspirational book, by any means. But it may possibly encourage.”
Applegate discussed the book via Instagram in October 2025.
“Thanks all for sharing your love with me this past week as I share my life with you. My memoir is about survival and all of the things that I never told anyone: the great things, the terrible stuff, the hilarious stuff, the shitty sad stuff,” Applegate captioned an Instagram post on the time. “Things a few of my closest friends don’t know. You all mean all the pieces to me. Thanks for reading. Peace and blessings.”
Applegate can also be set to detail her ongoing multiple sclerosis battle within the book. (The actress announced in 2021 that she had been diagnosed with MS.)
The book “is about a little bit girl with sad eyes who ended up becoming Christina Applegate,” she told People. “And she or he still has those sad eyes. But she’s a stronger, different, resilient human being. And that’s really sort 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 greater term, f***ing suck sometimes. So I’m being as honest and raw as I possibly can.”