Why Christina Applegate is glad 'cringy' Married With Children could never be made today
Christina Applegate has revealed why she still "cringes" over a key part of her Married With Children role.
Christina Applegate "cringes" over how the Married With Children audience lusted over her.
The 54-year-old star, who played Kelly Bundy in all 11 seasons of the classic sitcom, has opened up about her struggle with body dysmorphia and anorexia, which she says was worsened by her time playing the promiscuous and rebellious teen.
In an extract from her memoir You With The Sad Eyes shared by Vulture, she wrote: "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.”
She took drastic measures to control her weight, and ended up as little more than "bone, bone, bone".
She added: "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.”
Christina admitted she was "never satisfied", while she started to wear "tighter" and "shorter" clothes as the show continued.
She recalled: “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.”
Christina insisted she doesn't blame the cast or crew for what occurred, and she doesn't blame anyone for the ways the role impacted her mental health issues.
She said: “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.”
