Christina Applegate reflects on the moment she left Brad Pitt feeling abandoned at an awards ceremony, where she had brought him as her date. In her new memoir, "You With the Sad Eyes," the "Dead to Me" actress, now 54, recalls inviting Pitt to the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles after they had been "platonic pals for the longest time."
At the time, Applegate was just 17 and at the peak of her "Married... with Children" sitcom fame. She wore a classy Ceil Chapman gown to the ceremony, which made her feel "incredible."
"In fact," she adds in the book, "I felt so powerful and sure of myself for once that when the awards show was over, I left with Sebastian Bach, not Brad Pitt."
The actress says she had been eyeing Skid Row frontman Bach, now 57, throughout the night. She points out that Pitt, now 62, was "still making his way as an actor, and he wasn’t yet THE Brad Pitt, the man of so many people’s dreams." (The eventual Oscar winner's big break would come with a memorable role in 1991's "Thelma & Louise.")
Applegate, who is now married to musician Martyn LeNoble, 56, writes that Pitt "was left to sullenly drive" her mom and a friend home from the event after ditching him for the rock star.
"Not surprisingly, [he] was subsequently very mad at me. We didn’t talk for many years after that," writes Applegate. "Eventually, we agreed that I’d been a kid, and though he’d deserved much better, it was time to forgive the child who dumped him for the lead singer of Skid Row."
During an appearance on "Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen" back in 2015, Applegate played "Plead the Fifth" and was asked about the rumor that she ditched Pitt at the award show. Cohen asked Applegate who the other man was that she left Pitt for that night. She responded coyly, "How many fifths do I get? ... I have to say it? I don't have to do anything!" She confirmed that the mystery man was famous but not an actor and that they didn't go on to date after that night. She also said she did not date Pitt after that.
Applegate's new book "You With the Sad Eyes" spans her childhood, past abusive relationships, motherhood, and her experiences with both breast cancer and MS. "We all have come from somewhere, some places more painful than others, and it’s what you do with it, I guess," she told PEOPLE in a recent cover story. "This is not an inspirational book by any means. But it can inspire."
"You With the Sad Eyes" is now available wherever books are sold.
