STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow

Issue date: Sept. 18-20, 1998

Christina Applegate

In this article:
Advice bits
Ask Applegate for advice

Applegate's new sitcom, Jesse, won the post-Friends slot on NBC. She'll draw on her own experience of being raised by a single mother.

rowing up in the Hollywood Hills in the '70s, Christina Applegate had just one friend whose parents weren't divorced. "I went to a school where it felt very normal that we all lived with our mothers and visited our fathers on weekends."

Applegate went on to sitcom stardom as sexy but stupid Kelly Bundy in Married ... With Children, Fox's long-running ode to dysfunctional families.

Now 26, she returns to TV this week in Jesse, playing a single mother of a 9-year-old son. Created by the producers of Friends, the NBC show has one of TV's best time slots, post-Friends, Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Jesse is a sitcom with a dramatic edge, and Applegate is prepared for controversy. At 17, her character made "a moral decision not to abort her child. People have a hard time with a young single mother. They think, 'Why'd she get pregnant? Why was she so irresponsible?' I'm looking forward to the challenge of answering those questions."

Applegate will draw on her mother's experiences raising a child by herself. (She's still close to her mom, Nancy Priddy, a TV actress.) "It's a difficult ride, and it helps to have a friendship with your child. My mother was my pal. She'd always say, 'It's you and me against the world.' There's safety in that. But eventually you have to incorporate other people. Like they say, 'It takes a village to raise a child.' " On Jesse, that village is an ensemble cast.

Applegate wants her show to explore why single moms fear bringing men into their lives. "A lot of women, like my mother, never got into another relationship. She knew I didn't want it; it would take attention away from me."

Her experiences made her a realist. "Expectations are planned disappointments."



ADVICE BITS
-- Don't stay together for the kids' sake:
"My parents knew their relationship wasn't working. Why put a child with two people who don't love each other and don't want to be together? That's more detrimental to a child than divorce."

-- Single parents "can't date a bunch of people. It's confusing for the child."

-- What she learned from ditzy Kelly Bundy:
"They say ignorance is bliss, that you have to be stupid to be blissful. I envied her. Each little moment in her life was a new shiny thing."

ASK APPLEGATE FOR ADVICE
Christina Applegate will write or call a reader who seeks advice. By Sept. 27, write to "Straight Talk," P.O. Box 3455, Chicago, Ill. 60654 (fax: 312-661-0375; e-mail: talk@usaweekend.com).