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Christina Applegate knows better than anyone why her character Kelly Bundy in the sitcom “Married… With Children” was such a success.
In her recently published book, “You with the Sad Eyes,” Applegate explained that Bundy was an icon in the 80s because she was a “full rock s–t.” Looking back on old scenes now, the 54-year-old “cringes” at how fans used to lust after her rebellious teenage character.
“I played Kelly as a tease and as a virgin—which is why I think viewers loved her rather than hated her. One of the creators, Michael Moye, and I talked about this regularly. We agreed to keep Kelly virginal and have the ‘Kelly is a tramp’ opinion come solely from her brother, Bud,” Applegate wrote.
Christina Applegate says Kelly Bundy in “Married… With Children” was a “full on rock s–t.” (Getty Images)
“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,” she wrote. “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.”
Applegate explained that she was aware that her character was written in a provocative way and has no ill-will for the crew.
“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.”
“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,” she wrote.
In the book, Applegate emphasized that Bundy could not be further from who she was at the time. She was 16 when she took on the role as Kelly Bundy whose main goal was to tease boys while she “waited until the propitious date of 8/8/88 to have sex for the first time, as diligently noted in my diary.”
Christina Applegate’s memoir, “You with the Sad Eyes,” released on March 3. (Christina Applegate/Little, Brown and Company)
Applegate included an excerpt from her teenage diary: “Guess what? You know when I was talking about how I needed to have sex? Well, I did. And I did the dirty deed with the only person I would want to do it for the first time with anyway. I just made love to [name redacted] trice. It hurt like a motherf—er. But oh well, it’s over with.”
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In her book, Applegate wrote that she already struggled with body image issues before taking on the role as Bundy for 11 seasons, and it only worsened throughout the course of the show.
Cast of the hit show “Married… With Children” poses for a portrait in October 1989. (Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)
“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 wrote, explaining that she was anorexic.
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“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,” Applegate continued. “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 Applegate at the screening of “Cracked Up” in May 1987. (Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty Images)
Applegate added that she worked so hard on her body, but she was “never satisfied.”
“There were days when I’d go to a spin class, then work out with my trainer, then go to a dance class for two and a half more hours, always chasing the unobtainable, abusing my body in the service of a quest for perfection that was as damaging as any addiction,” she wrote.
Christina Applegate in 1986. (Maureen Donaldson/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Applegate’s memoir, “You with the Sad Eyes,” hit the shelves on March 3.
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