Smoking during scenes? Jennie Garth on the ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ set.
Jennie Garth, while promoting her new memoir “I Choose Me,” chats with USA TODAY’s Ralphie Aversa about what the “Beverly Hills, 90210” set was like.
AUSTIN — Actress Jennie Garth’s young motherhood was anything but typical.
At a recent speaking event in Austin, Garth shared with a room full of mothers that she was running to care for her daughter between takes on the “Beverly Hills, 90210” set. While Garth was navigating becoming a parent, her character Kelly Taylor was navigating love triangles, family trauma and drug addiction.
“One second I was this young woman playing this young woman, and we were all just young and having so much fun and hanging out, and then I became pregnant. And my world just changed,” she said.
Garth said she was 25 and eight years into filming for the TV show when she had her first baby. She went back to work − and being on camera − four weeks after giving birth.
“That was real tough, as you can imagine,” Garth said, adding that it takes a lot longer than four weeks for most mothers to recover post-childbirth. “You’re in a fog. There’s breast milk situations happening that nobody understood.”
On set, she said, she would run back to her trailer to be with her baby whenever she heard the word “cut.”
“I packed her up every morning at 5 a.m., took her to set with me by 6 a.m., and then I was in makeup for an hour or two, and she would be with our nanny,” Garth said.
Her daughters’ nanny was instrumental to her ability to be a “hands-on mom,” Garth said.
“I didn’t want to not raise my girls. I wanted to be there for them,” she said.
Jennie Garth says she found her purpose by slowing down, looking in
Two decades after the finale of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and after her daughters were grown, Garth said she hit a wall. “What am I doing?” she asked herself at 50. The height of the COVID-19 pandemic was fading, and she couldn’t help but think, “What is life all about?”
In self-searching, she found her purpose was to inspire others to look inward, too. She wrote all about it in her new book, “I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention,” which she describes as “a self-help book disguised as a memoir.”
“It’s so important that we slow our roll sometimes and check in with ourselves and ask, ‘How am I choosing myself right now? How am I putting my own dreams, my own desires, my own needs on the table, you know, instead of just fulfilling everybody else’s needs?'” she said.
Saying “I choose me” can sound selfish, she said. But it’s really about being at your own best so you have the capacity to care well for others. Mothers in the crowd knew what she meant, and nodded in understanding.
“Because when we’re running on empty, we all know what that looks like. It’s a disaster,” Garth said. “And then everybody is affected by it in your circle.”
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.