Jennie Garth went through a painful divorce from Peter Facinelli in 2013 and had to feed herself on alcohol and pills before eventually checking into rehab.
The “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum spoke about her upcoming memoir, “I Choose Me,” and recalled a horribly destructive period in her life in an interview with People magazine published Wednesday.
Garth, who played Kelly Taylor for all 10 seasons of the hit teen drama from 1990 to 2000, admitted in her book that she hit rock bottom after splitting from Facinelli after 12 years of marriage.
In I Choose Me, which is scheduled for release on April 14, the actress recalls drinking a lot of alcohol and taking tons of pills to cope with an unexpected divorce, ending up in the hospital with a stomach pump.
Garth, now 54, checked into Canyon Ranch Rehabilitation Center after the near-fatal incident.
“I realized that my light was really dimming,” Garth told People magazine about the incident and its aftermath. “I wasn’t putting off the good vibes. I could see that when I looked in the mirror. I could see the negative impact that kind of sadness and anger was having on me.”
“Then one day a weird switch flipped and I said, ‘I don’t want to carry this anymore. It’s affecting my relationships and how I feel about myself. I have to let it go. I have to forgive him.'”
Garth and Facinelli, 52, met on the set of the TV movie Unfinished in 1995 and married in 2001.
The two had three daughters, Luca, 28, Laura, 23, and Fiona, 19, but in March 2012, the Twilight actor blindsided Garth and demanded a divorce.
The “What I Like About You” alum detailed the end of her and Facinelli’s marriage in her 2014 memoir, “Deep Thoughts from a Hollywood Blonde.”
“The ground that had been cracking and moving finally cracked open and swallowed me whole. Peter came home and told me that he no longer wanted to be married to me and that he thought it was best for us to separate to better understand our positions,” she wrote.
However, Garth bounced back, got sober and continued a relationship with actor Dave Abrams.
The couple married in 2015 and have been living together in Southern California despite living apart for nearly a year due to two consecutive miscarriages.
She and Facinelli have since made amends and are friends, raising three daughters together.
In January 2025, Garth and Abrams, 44, were taken into the midst of the Los Angeles wildfires.
