Jenny Mollen Gets Honest About Life After Jason Biggs: ‘We Still Love Each Other’

Jenny Mollen is going through a lot right now, but she still made time to stop by Not Skinny but Not Fat to unpack it all.

Over the last few weeks, Mollen found herself at the center of an internet firestorm after a photo she posted with her oldest son sparked backlash online. At the same time, she’s navigating life after her separation from Jason Biggs, whom she was with for nearly two decades. For most people, that would be enough reason to log off entirely. Mollen, however, decided she wants to talk about it.

The actress and author joined host Amanda Hirsch to discuss it all. The split, the Instagram post, how she’s handling single life—nothing is off the table.

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

What does it feel like to be single for the first time in 18 years?

“It’s surreal. I feel like it’s really bizarre because, well, also like you have kids with somebody, right? So people will be like, ‘Oh, how does it feel?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know, like the same.’ We live in two different places, but we’re still tethered. We have kids. We still talk 18 times a day about everyone’s schedule and after school and holidays…I mean, it’s still, we still love each other. It’s just not, I don’t know, it’s a different type of romance. It’s like your best friend.”

Why do you think people took your divorce so personally?

“The weirdest thing about going through something like this when you’ve been in a public relationship is that it doesn’t feel—it’s not like a death where people just write you and they’re like, ‘I’m so sorry. Do you need anything?’ It’s more like somebody’s attending your wedding, and you have to take care of everybody else. You’re like, ‘Are you OK? Can I get you a drink?’ People are like, ‘I don’t know how to feel. I’m so sad.’ And I’m just writing, like, ‘I don’t know you. I’m so sorry. Like, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m so deeply sorry’…And we love each other. It is a solid relationship, and we have always been amazing co-parents and teammates.”

Has dating changed since you were last single?

“I don’t know how to be single. I don’t think I—I feel like if I start dating someone, I’ll be like, ‘I’m your wife now,’ because I don’t actually know. The weirdest thing I’ve been talking to people about being single today is that nobody’s actually having conversations. They’re all staring at their phones. They’re all f**king playing this texting banter that there’s nothing behind it. It’s not real.”

What actually happened with the Instagram post that sparked backlash?

“[I posted a photo with my son in bed]. The caption was, ‘Your eldest child will be the most toxic guy you ever date,’ which is true. Which, if you have a son, you f**king know that…Somebody attached my Instagram to my Facebook, and Facebook is a different demo of human, and I think that that’s where it started to get this weird traction…It’s like this is the joke I’ve been making forever, like I’m in this dysfunctional relationship with like, a guy who’s, like, you know, ‘Can you hold my head while I like vomit into the toilet?’ ‘Can you wipe my butt?’ ‘Can you give me a full-body massage before bed?’ ‘Can you be a dear and put more ice in my water bottle?’…Just use and abuse me, and I’m still like, ‘Is he going to call?’…

…I think they thought that maybe the hug looked lascivious. I’m not sure. I don’t think they liked the caption ‘toxic.’ I think ‘toxic’ got in some sort of algorithm search…they couldn’t handle it. It threw them over the edge…And the fact that the first time it gets taken in this twisted way and people are calling you intense sh*t, like, I mean they’re like, ‘We hope that Jason gets custody of your children, we think that you are a pedophile, you’re disgusting.’” 

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Do you think the reaction would’ve been different if you were still married?

“I think that if I had made this joke a month ago, two months ago, it would have played differently [because] I’m still married, but like, I was publicly with a man, and I think that there’s something about a woman who is not attached to a man that somehow reads as a threat, dangerous.”

How did Jason respond when the controversy exploded?

“Jason had come over and was like, ‘You know, do you want me to say something?’ And of course, like, I don’t want that…You know me, like, have I ever kept my mouth shut about anything that I believe in? My publicist called, and she’s like, ‘You know, do you want to give a comment?’ And I thought at first I did want to, and then another friend of mine said, you know, ‘Don’t comment, like just write something.’”

Why didn’t you delete the post?

“I don’t know, maybe it’s up, maybe it’s not. I’d have to ask Caroline. So the night it was happening, I was talking to somebody, and I said, I’m in the middle of this situation, and I know [how] it’s gonna go. I can see right now, you know, because I’ve been in enough of these f**king weird scandals over the course of my career where like I can tell you this is gonna pick up and this is gonna be a thing, and I’m gonna feel like it’s the end of the world because I’m the person in it, but really it’s so small and it’s gone. It’s so ephemeral. It’s just fast. So I knew it was gonna happen, but I couldn’t take it down because then there’s that part of me that’s like, I get so indignant, and like stand so firmly in like what I believe that I’m just like, ‘Burn me to the f**king ground, b*tches.’ This is a picture of my f**king kid. I’m not taking it down. And you know what? I’m doubling down. I’m gonna post another pic just to annoy you.”

Has the backlash changed how you’ll post going forward?

“No, I’ll tell you the two things that are affecting my posting is like my separation, and then also my kids’ ages, because now I do feel like I’m accountable in a way that, like, it’s like I can post myself. Like, you know, when you’re married, it’s like you can flirt with anybody. It doesn’t matter because it’s not real. You can get away with just sh*t; you can look crazy because they know it’s like you’re married, you’re not like out like doing sh*t. But then when you’re not married, you’re like, ‘Whoa, she’s f**king like f**king everybody.’”

What’s the hardest part about raising boys that nobody talks about?

“This is the first time in my life I don’t have my kids sleeping in my house every night. I mean, there is something so hard and heartbreaking about that, like to get your head around like this is my new normal. So like, yeah, I mean, for my son to still wanna hold me, it means so much right now.”

Why are you refusing to give your 12-year-old a phone?

“[My son’s] like, ‘I’m not cool. Like, don’t you understand? Doesn’t that matter to you?’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t want you to be cool now. If you’re f**king cool now, like, your life trajectory f**king sucks. You need to be not cool right now, and you’re already a privileged white kid with a famous dad growing up in Manhattan, like, enough for you. You need some bad sh*t to happen’…Yeah, he gets it. Oh my God, I want my kids to struggle. I’m like, you need a f**king struggle. You need to feel what it’s like to fight against something.”

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

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