Jennie Garth Opens Up About ‘90210’ Fame, Anxiety, and Choosing Herself

For a generation of viewers, Jennie Garth will always be Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was at the center of one of television’s most unforgettable teen dramas and part of a show that helped define the ’90s. But decades later, Garth is speaking from a very different place.

On Not Skinny But Not Fat, she joins host Amanda Hirsch for a conversation that feels reflective and grounded. While revisiting one of TV’s biggest phenomena, Garth also shares the perspective that comes with growth and living many lives beyond the role that made her famous.

Below are the highlights from the conversation, adapted from the episode.

Why did you decide to write ‘I Choose Me’ now?

“‘Why not’ is the answer, right? I had the opportunity and I love when a door opens. I don’t ever, you know, not at least peek around the corner and see what’s in there. I also kind of came to this place in my life in my 50s, you get a different perspective on things and all the work that I’ve done, my personal work that I’ve done and my journey, sort of, reached a point where I felt like, oh my gosh, I’ve learned so much. I want to share this with other people. And my parents are both educators. So I think it’s just kind of in my blood to want to help people and yeah, like teach what I’ve learned. Like I shouldn’t just keep it to myself. It’s not really doing anybody else any good.”

Did you always want to be an actress?

“I never wanted to be an actress. I thought I was going to be a dance teacher. I went to a pageant to get a scholarship, like if you won the pageant, you got a scholarship, and I really wanted that for my mom and dad, so that they, you know, would have help paying for college, but I didn’t win. But somebody at [pageant], he was one of the guest judges, and he and his wife were there. And they came up to me and said, ‘we think you have something. Have you ever thought about acting before?’ And they gave me a script and they said, Tomorrow, let’s meet up for lunch and you can read this scene. And so I took the scene and I did my, you know, I tried to memorize the lines and ended up doing the scene with his wife at a little table and I just remember they were like, ‘Yeah, you do’…

…He said, ‘you know what, you’re still, you’re not ready yet. You’re green, you need to go get some training.’ So I went and took some acting classes in Arizona, where I was living at the time. And I would send in like my progress on the VHS tapes. We’d send it in like the snail mail to him in LA—was a big deal then…it was cool. Another door that opened and I just went through it.”

Did you feel like you could become Kelly Taylor?

“No, I felt like I could pretend to be her. And I thought it would be really super cool to be her. And I just did the audition scene and yeah, I guess it went well because Aaron Spelling hired me…That was like one audition. I read for the casting director right before I went in to read for a room full of suits.”

How intense was ‘90210’ fame?

“I feel like there’s, yeah, like you said, there’s so many options out there. There’s so many famous people now. I can’t keep up with them. I don’t know who most of them are. But then it was like, you know, this is what you get. These are the shows you get to watch and these are the people on them. And that show really just resonated so deeply with like the youth of the world that wherever we went, it was nuts. It was nuts.”

Did fame affect your mental health?

“Yeah, I’m much more of an introvert than people realize, and it did scare me…I started to develop a little agoraphobia where I wouldn’t leave the house. I wouldn’t go to the store. I still don’t go to the grocery store. Like, I don’t know, I get a little nervous out in the real world…it’s not even that I think people are going to freak out or anything. It’s just something inside of me that needs to be safe and secure in an environment that’s controlled, you know.”

When did anxiety start for you?

“I was kind of born a ‘blue person.’ I don’t know if everybody kind of knows what that means. It’s like I didn’t, I wasn’t born with like, you know, rainbows and unicorns flying out of my ass. I was, you know, like I like to think deeply. I feel things deeply. And so I was always trying to sort of manage that. You know, I just, my nickname when I was a little girl was ‘puddles’ because I cried a lot. Like I was just very sensitive to things. And as I got older, I really tried to shut that down because it was brought to my attention that being emotional was too much for some people, or it felt like they were trying to tell me that it wasn’t a good thing. And I really kind of decided to flip that script because I wanted to be emotional. I don’t want to be cut off from my emotions. I don’t want to lose my voice. And so now I just say I am emotion-ful.”

What helped you heal?

“I think it was just asking the question, what do I want next? Like what do I want to focus my precious time on and what do I not want to focus my time on? And just getting really clear about that first. But honestly, I was just stuck. I was like, I’ve got to do some work because I want to change not just for myself but for my girls, but yeah, also for myself. I want to live, I want to be happy and there was a certain period of my life where I just couldn’t find the happy. And I would look around and I would see all these people living these happy, joyous lives, and I couldn’t get out of my own way.”

What was it like filming while pregnant?

“No, actually I think it was season 8. I do a rewatch podcast and we just rewatched it and I was hiding the baby in season 8. Yeah. We called it ‘Bob.’ The baby bump. We’re like, ‘somebody hide Bob. Get in front of Bob. I can see Bob,’…I showed early, I was large.”

How do you feel about being a young mom now?

“I feel like we really did grow up together in the best way. I’ve said before that they’re my greatest teachers. Like, I go to them for advice. They come to me for advice. We love spending time together. And I’m just like, if I die tomorrow, I will feel like I’ve done something good. You know, I will feel fulfilled.”

What do you remember about Luke Perry?

“Yeah, I got that call on the way to drop my daughter off at school and I just went where I felt like he was, like based on where he lived, and I just was drawn to a certain hospital and it was actually the hospital that he was in, but I couldn’t get up to see him. They weren’t allowing anybody up that wasn’t family. So I just sat in the lobby for a couple of hours that day until his manager at the time came and said, ‘you know, go home. I’ll keep you posted,’…we were very good friends, and I think if any one of my cast members was in a situation like that, I would want to be with them. Like I love them.”

How do you feel about Kelly Taylor today?

“I love Kelly. I love what that show did for so many young people. I’m proud of it.”

Would you ever join ‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’?

“I’ve been asked to be on Housewives, but I don’t even know…Like I don’t think that’s the right environment for me to feel good and healthy.”

To hear the full conversation with Jennie Garth, listen to Not Skinny but Not Fat wherever you get your podcasts.

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