Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, Beverly Hill's nine oh two one oh star and podcast hosts Jenny Garth is here with us. She's talking about how she's navigated a very public divorce and co parenting, plus how a final line of dialogue from nine oh two one oh still rings truer than ever.
Today.
It's Monday, October seventh.
I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, to laugh, learn and brighten your day.
On My Mind Monday is brought to you by missus Meyers Clean Day, inspired by the goodness of the garden.
Simone, you know what day it is. Today is On my Mind Monday, our chance to talk about the things that we've read or seen over the weekend that give us a fresh perspective. Can I come at you with mine? Please? Okay? I read this great essay by Kelly Vaughan where she talks about deciding if she's going to take her husband's last name. So she asked friends for their thoughts, but she still wasn't sure what felt right for her. She ends up taking his legal last name, but kept her
maiden name professionally. Okay, So then she gets her new Social Security card, and she said when she looked at it, she was shocked and it made her realize her maiden name meant more to her than she actually even thought. So she changed it back, and once her name was restored, she said she felt whole again. The reason I'm sharing this today is this is something I've thought about a lot. Even when I go to bachelorette parties, I usually bring
this topic up. I ask all the girls there, all the women, how they feel about taking their husband's last name, and it's usually a point of debate because everybody feels differently about it. How do you feel?
Well, it's really funny that this is your on my mind Monday, because I just came from a wedding and this topic came up. And you're right, everyone has strong feelings about it. Listen. I owe want to stay away from speaking too broadly about like what women should do. However, I personally have very strong feelings about this. I did not change my name. My maiden name is Boyce. I'm keeping it partly because I spent a very long time building up my career, and my career happens to be public.
So people, if you've ever seen my work, it's you know, you've seen it under the name Simone Boyce. And the idea of changing my last name felt like to some degree I would be undermining my professional achievements. And I also think that I saw this modeled by my mom because my mom was an actor in the eighties and her maiden name was John's and she kept her maiden name in her work. So I kind of had that example for me when I was growing up. But my
biggest problem with this is the history of it. The history of name change is rooted in the idea that women, at one point in time legally became the possession of a man. And I mean this goes back to the exchange of land and feudal territories and houses coming together and forming alliances, and in that context, women were completely dehumanized.
They were property. And so have times changed. Yes, we are in a modern time where we do have the right to vote, where we do have credit cards, and I think we are recognized for our humanity more so than women were back then. However, I think it's really important to question the origins of these traditions, because, on the other hand, even in a modern context, all of the burden, all of the invisible labor of changing your name,
it falls on the women. It falls on us to spend hours at the DMB filling out paperwork, communicating with the government who's notoriously impossible to communicate with, and husbands don't have to do any of this. So tell me, I mean, is that really fair.
I think what's hard, though, is there's not a great solution or other option, because I do like the idea of feeling like a family unit, and you know, when you get married, if you decide to do that and you have children, then it is nice to all feel like you have the same name. I think your kids like when you go to the airport, they feel like a family unit. Not that that's necessary, but it's something
I think about. The problem is there's no real solution, like do you hyphenate even if you keep your name, which name do the kids take? I just feel like we're in a time where we're questioning all of this and there's no clear solution, which is why I think everybody keeps debating it.
I actually think though, that millennials have gotten really creative with this. I have a friend who combined her last name with their husbands and they both took the new last name.
I do like the idea of combining names. I actually have a friend who lost her father at a young age, and so she's the only child and so keeping the family name alive was really important to her, and her husband said, I'll take your last name. That's fine. I think the meaning of the name is something that I think about. You know, I've actually asked this question to Connie Chung. I asked it to you and our producer Tim Offline. I said, what does it mean to be
a blank? Whatever your last name is? Because when I think about my last name, I'm like, what does that mean to be? My real last name is Willerman? Robey's my middle name, and I'm like, what does it mean to be a Willerman? And the first thing I thought was it means to be a free thinker. And I think everybody has some association to that name, whether it's associated with their parents, their grandparents, their the hardship, the joy of their family. And it's more than a name.
It's memories, it's family values. This one's complicated for me. Yeah, you know what the good thing is in twenty twenty four is women have a choice, and that's what feminism is all about. It's about choice. So which whatever feels right for you is the right choice. But speaking of identity, we have somebody who thought about their identity a lot as they moved through marriage and divorce. Jenny Garth is here with us today.
Yes, you might remember her as Kelly Taylor from Beverly Hills nine oh two one oh, the role that sky rocketed her into fame. Jenny appeared on all ten seasons of the show, which ran from nineteen ninety to two thousand. It's hard to think about what TV would look like today without the impact of nine oh two one oh.
When I tell you I used to fake sick for school to stay home and watch nine oh two one oh, I am not lying. I loved that show. That was like I love Saved by the Bell, and then I discovered nine oh two one oh, and I thought I have seasons to catch up on same Well.
In twenty fourteen, Jenny Garth added author to her resume with her memoir titled Deep from a Hollywood Blonde, and now she's the host of her podcast I Choose Me, where she interviews celebrities, friends and family members, including a very powerful conversation with her ex husband Peter Fatchinelli.
She also recently launched a clothing line called Me by Jenny Garth, and she's entering a new decade her fifties, so I can't wait to ask all about how she's approaching this new chapter and the mantra that she lives by, which is I Choose Me. Jenny Garth is joining us right after the break Stay with us.
Thanks to our partners at missus Myers. You can learn a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus Meyers's collection of household products are inspired by the garden and pack up punch against dirt and grime. Visit missus Myers dot com.
Jennie Garth, Welcome to the bright Side. Oh that's sound so nice. We're so happy to have you. Simone and I have been talking about this interview for quite some time. And this mantra that you have, I Choose Me. I didn't realize that it actually came from a line in nine O two one zero, but you've really given it new life. What did it mean to you then versus now?
I know it's so crazy, right that it's all it's from the nineties, like it's from the OG Show. Yeah, it was that moment when Kelly had to choose between Brandon and Dylan and she was put on the spot and she said, I can't choose either of you. I choose myself. I choose me. And I didn't really understand like the levity of that statement when I was twenty two.
Probably I just I didn't really get it until years later when I started hearing it from fans that I would meet, especially women who grew up watching it, and they would be like, oh my gosh, that line I choose me such an effect on me. I never knew I could choose myself in moments like that, and I was like, wait, what, And it just started to make sense on a different level for me, and I thought,
this message has to be brought back around. It has to be amplified, because I was in a place where I was like, what am I doing with my life? I don't really enjoy like the whole rigamow of making television or movies anymore. I don't like sitting around waiting, I don't like auditioning, I don't like waiting to be rejected or accepted. So yeah, here I am. I have a podcast called I Choose Me. I have a clothing
brand called Me. I'm coming out with a perfume called Me, Like I'm going for it because I've always had so much to share with people. I'm just not the right way in and I'm just this is it, this is the moment for I choose me in every way.
I'm so curious how you choose yourself on a daily basis, because in theory it sounds great, but the reality is life happens. Like I'm a young mom of like two little boys, you know, who are four and two, and it's it's hard to choose me, just being completely honest. And you know you have a very full life too, You've got three beautiful kids. So how do you choose yourself on a daily basis?
Like, what does that look like, Jenny? I mean there were years where I was in the same position as you, little kids underfoot, relying on me one hundred percent and working full time and trying to keep a marriage alive and trying to be a good sister and daughter, and it was really hard. So to be truthful with you, I now can go back and say, yeah, I was in the same boat. I didn't choose myself when I was a young mom because I didn't know I could
and I didn't know I needed to. And so now as my daughters have all grown up a little bit and they meet me a little bit less, I started having a little extra time on my hands and thinking about things and having like ten minutes in the bathroom to myself, just taking those little opportunities. At first too, I'm not going to do the dishes right now, because right now is an opportunity for me to sit down in journal, or sit down and read a book, or just sit down and stare out the window. The dishes
will be there when I'm done, you know. So it was just like little minute things like that for a long time. That then, as I got more and more time and I was able to see the benefits of that kind of self care and those choices, that I was like, Okay, I need to work this more into my daily schedule. So then I actually just start putting it on my calendar, like and it's like it's an appointment.
I get up every morning at seven am and I go to the gym and that's my hour to take care of my body physically and also you know, mentally, and your world starts to open up about how you can take more and more. I choose me moments. And I was told this when I was all my life. You can't really truly love others until you love yourself. And I was like, oof, that's really lame. I you know, like, okay, I'll love myself in about two hours when I'm done
with this. But I realize now that it's so true, Like you have a different presence about you when you are taken care of by yourself. It rubs off on the people around you and the people that work with you, and the people in your home. In essence, choosing yourself is choosing the people that you love too.
Well, speaking of the people that you love, your daughter Lola interviewed you on your podcast about turning fifty and your next chapter. Danielle and I interviewed a woman who runs this community called Glorious Broad's, and we have this wide ranging conversation about growing older, and she says that she called the fifties the fit fifties, like where you just have zero f's left to give. And I'm so curious what your take on the fifties has been so far.
Definitely not fucket fifties, because I'm so intentionally choosing my health, what I eat, and how I exercise. Like everything becomes so much more important as you get older and you're able to really prioritize your time and be selective about
what you want to spend your time on. And so I feel more intentional and more just collected and grounded, and like, I have a vision for what I want for my future, and I have a vision for what I want to provide my grown up children with now, what I want to be able to give them, And so that drives me and fuels me to really stay connected to what I want and my plan.
I think that when people talk about aging, there's this pressure that's like assigned to them because now, all of a sudden, there's expectations or criticism if they don't go all in on the concept of like aging completely natural.
So I'm dying to.
Hear what you think about this, Like do you feel pressure to not dye your hair or to dye your hair? Like how do you think about all of it?
I have been under scrutiny my entire life and my livelihood has been predicated on how I look. Yeah, and
that has really fucked me up. You guys, like I think anybody that can imagine themselves in my position as a young girl being the hot one on the show, or the pretty one of the blonde or the mill for all the things as generate as you go through the decades, like what it is that you represent to people, what they remember from you, what they want to see when they look at you, what they expect from you.
That has been an immense amount of pressure and something I've never had the capacity to process and actually confront and deal with until now. It was a different kind of mental pressure that goes really really deep into someone's psyche. And it's hard to ever really talk about it or acknowledge it because it seems so superficial and seems so you know, there are much bigger problems.
Well, it's hard for people to think like, oh, I'm so sorry you were so hot exactly like, oh, you're you're sad, sad life, right, yeah, but you're almost in jail in your own brain.
It's how you process it all and think of it. Because I'm my worst critic and I don't know if other people feel this way or not. But like I do read comments, I have to curb myself now. But like I have read the comments and I do see the hateful things that people say. Well, I don't know, but like it does, Deke, it's old and you just have to learn how to navigate it, which I have
done and I'm still doing. And also it's just I think it goes back to that like loving yourself and being able to go back and look at all that you were dealt and then also to just look at what all the things you have that you're grateful for, and you just keep going when you work through it, and it just it manifests in a different way and you're able to like put it in a compartment and move forward.
You recently started a clothing line me by Jenny Garth, and looking at your website, I really like how inclusive it feels. It's women of all ages sizes. You know, people create new brands to fill a gap in an existing space. What gap are you trying to fill with your brand?
I'm trying to fill the gap that I'm in because I don't feel comfortable in certain things, and my comfort is a huge priority to me now than more than it ever was. Like, I've been on uncomfortable clothes all my life. I've worn heels all my life. I want to feel beautiful and strong and independent in my clothes and maybe don't want to show as much of my
body sometimes, or maybe I do. I don't know, but I want to have the option, and I wanted to create clothing that did just that, that gave women in my bracket, either younger or older, that same feeling of like, I know I can throw this on and feel good in my skin and go out and kill the world. Just spreading the message to women my age that you don't have.
To dress Yes, older, fifty in twenty twenty four is really different than fifty in two thousand.
Even, Hello Chicos Talbots, That's what I remember doing shopping with my mom.
So funny.
Yeah, remember the Golden Girls. They were in their fifties, you guys, that's wild.
There's all those hilarious memes where they put like a j Lo photo next to the Golden Girls and they're like, this is fifty.
I don't know about that's yelo, but wow, that's a pretty high level. Just live up to.
We all have a person that we go to our ideas with. I have like three people that I really trust to tell me the truth when you were creating this line, who is that person for you? Like, who did you share the vision of this brand with.
I had a very clear vision of what I wanted to do and the aesthetic of it all. But I did the very onset of going down this road of doing a clothing brand. I brought my daughter in and she's twenty one, Lola, and I thought this would be such an amazing opportunity for her to learn the business. And she's been a part of every aspect of it,
on the business side and on the creative side. And she really does bring a beautiful, a younger perspective, and we talk about let's merge the things that you love and the things that I love, and let's see if we can find a balance for our customers. And besides that, I just love working with her every day. We have a great relationship and this is just only making it better.
I'm curious what her perspective on aging is because I think a lot of how we view aging comes from our parents. I can remember growing up, my mom had, you know, an infinite amount of like serums and creams, and I always thought that she was just skin goals, Like having healthy skin became a goal for me because of her.
I think that Lola would probably say, I mean, I could pull her in here and make her answer you, But I think that Lola would say that she's inspired by me, and all my daughters are always looking to meet their mom to show them the way and what it can be like and what feels good and what doesn't.
I'm thinking about the world that they're growing up in today, and it's so different from the environment that Danielle and I came up in and the world that you came up in, Jenny. And something that we've been saying around the office as we prepared for this conversation is nine h two one zero walked so Euphoria could run. Euphoria is like this shock to the system, even for modern viewers.
But I'm curious, was it.
I was like, oh my, I couldn't watch it. It made me sad.
Yeah, that was too much.
It's too much for me.
Yeah, okay, So how are you you've clearly seen it, Like, how are you processing just how far teen TV programming has come.
I really can't even think about it. It's funny. Like my daughter Luca, the first one, grew up watching Barney until she was like in middle school, The Brady Bunch. You know, it's very like, these are the things that are not going to corrupt your little brain and your soul. But now, like I say it to my youngest daughter Fiona, like, please don't watch stuff that's disturbing. There's no point in it for you. Nothing good is going to come from that.
To the younger generation, they're so used to it now that it's so present everywhere they are, everywhere they look like. It's such a different world. And it makes me feel again one hundred years old, to think that it's changed so radically. But it's wild how much the world changes and how quickly it changes. And I never ever believe that when I was younger, but now I see it from a completely different point of view.
We have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Jenny Garth.
Stay with us, and we're back with Jenny Garth.
Throughout your life, you faced some incredibly challenging transitions, navigating child stardom, finding balance and co parenting after divorce, most recently, coping with the profound loss of your friend Shannon Doherty, and each of these experiences involves not just moving on, to be honest, I don't know if I believe in that,
but fundamentally reshaping your life. How have these moments influenced your understanding of resilience and what insights have you gained about rebuilding your life after profound change or loss.
I've had a lot of incredible moments in my life, and I'm so rightful for the show and the trajectory of how I'm still talking about it and people still love it and I still love it and I'm not embarrassed by it. So I feel like when bad things happen, you just have to go back to how grateful you are for your life. For me, I really believe in feeling my feelings. I know, I know what happens when you stuff your feelings and you compartmentalize and you don't
process things and you don't clean out the closet. So now, at this point in my life, after going through so many deaths and just big moments and moments of triumph and moments of despair, being in a place in my life where I didn't know what the future was, I didn't know what I was going to do. There have been so many times when I've been really lost. I say that because I'm on the other side, and the only way to get to the other side of something
is to go through it, not around it. Allow your body to feel the pain, and then work to get it out of your body. You have to dig in sometimes and look within and really acknowledge the reality of your life and what you're going through and what you're dealing with, and in doing that it really does help you to get through it quicker and more gracefully.
What was the one that you felt like you weren't going to make it on the other side of.
Oh everyone, you guys, I am dramatic. I'm like sometimes I laugh. I'm reading my old journals right now, and I'm such a drama queen in my journals. You know, you can really let it rip in there with your rage, writing and all the emotional stuff.
And I every.
Single time I've been through an upsetting time in my life, I am leveled. Like I am a highly emotional person. I like to call it emotion full, and I'm proud of that. But I'm also I'm deeply affected by the things that happen not just to me, but to people I love, and people I don't even know, and animals everywhere,
like I feel feelings like on a huge scale. So I just think that you have to learn to live with yourself and learn how you cope with things and allow yourself to be devastated sometimes in life and you can get through it and there is always something on the other side that's waiting for you.
I don't have journals. I just have situations that live rent free in my head, so I have like a virtual journal up there. But I have so much respect for you, Jenny. After listening to your two part episode of your podcast with your ex husband people Fashionally, I was just blown away by your honesty and your candor and your openness. Like you did a really brilliant job with that that is not easy to do.
Thank you. That means a lot to me. I had a lot of work to do after that divorce, and a lot of recovering to do, and a lot of loving myself. I would not have I would not be where I am today if it hadn't been for that happening. And you know, I share this before Peter knows this. He said to me once jin someday this is right when he was telling me, someday, you're gonna thank me for this, and I was like, are you in kidding me?
I'm never going to thank you for this. You just ruined my life, You ruin our family's lives, like what. And I stayed in that place for a really long time, that place of just pain and anger and resentment. And I tried and tried and tried and tried to get through it, and tried to be better and not show my emotions to the kids. And then there was something that I decided had to change for me, because walking around with that anger and resentment bitterness was making me
feel ugly. And I was convinced it was making me look ugly. Like I would look in the mirror and I would see ugly, and I would see pain, and I would see disappointment, and I just like, I don't want this anymore. Bye, Just get rid of it. And I hope that people know that that's possible if you choose to do it. It is possible.
Now that you've had some time from the divorce and your kids are older, they're doing so well, they're thriving. I'm curious what your learnings are when it comes to how to talk to kids about divorce and how to support kids who are going through it, because I'm thinking of a dear friend of mine whose kids are really struggling with the fact that their parents aren't together, and I just know a lot of people would benefit from hearing your perspective on this.
It sucks for the kids, you guys, I think the kids are the people that it hurts the most. It's something that is embedded in them at usually young ages, and those are the ages when they're not equipped to handle those kind of emotional traumas. You know, their brain literally just doesn't know what to do with what's happening, and they internalize it, they get mad at one or the other parent. They suffer in so many ways that
I'm very aware of that. Peter had a much different perspective on it, a much more like they'll be fine, they will adjust. They are what's that word they always say about kids, resilient. They're resilient. He and I disagree on this, and we agree to disagree on this, and we have very different parenting styles because of it and through it, and even now in my home, I always want to know what you're feeling. I always want to. I want you to be honest with me or through feelings.
I want to know when you hate me and when you're blaming everything on me. It's okay. I can take it because I know that I'm the only person that can take it. And all your anger and your frustration and your hurt and how it comes out in different ways and it projects into different things. I can take it. I'm your mom and I will still love you, so
give it all to me. And I was like a safe space for them to really feel the feelings and talk about it and so just kind of getting through it with them and allowing your kids to feel their feelings and not taking it personally.
I'm wondering how your identity shifted after the separation, because you said it hurt pretty bad.
I never knew how to choose myself. I was lost at that point in my life and really trying to get through it. I didn't have the tools and I really didn't have the support. I had to sort of like hit rock bottom and be really lost for a
certain period of time. And then it was not until I underwent some really important healing therapy intensive therapy that I was able to find that core of who I was and what I wanted and the healing that needed to happen, and just acknowledging and allowing it to happen. And that gave me a certain love for myself, Like I was like, Wow, Okay, look at all the work you have to do, Look at all the work you've done, Like you can do this. And I think that's how
I found the place of loving myself first. And I had so much fun getting to know me and love me and picking up all the shattered pieces and like gluing them back together and molding that into something that I was proud of, and that I how I wanted to show up for the world and my daughters and for myself.
Jenny, you have the most beautiful heart. But as we wrap up our conversation, this is the bright side. We wanted to end on a bright note. And something that puts a smile on my face is nineties nostalgia because it was just it was the best times. It was the best times are simpler, it was more wholesome.
We were hearing, our fashion was better.
I'm so glad that both of you got to experience just a little bit of the freedom of the night.
Yeah, yes, what makes you nostalgic when you think about that time.
I just think about how present everybody was with everyone and what a gift that was. And I mean as far as thestalgia.
Butterfly clips eye like what we think spaghetti strap.
The eyebrows, you guys, my eyebrows were pencil thin. And then I you know, I still close with my cast members and we love each other so much and always will.
Like looking at them, I'm reminded of, like, well, what the nineties were so rad because we were all there and we were in it together, and we lived through that entire decade from nineteen eighty nine to two thousand on that show, and it represented so much to so many people and to us, and you know, to me, I'm so happy that I was a part of that.
Do you have a favorite red carpet look from the nineties? Is there one that lives rent free in your head?
There's so many bad ones. Yes, there was the Markwong narc dress that was like paper thin crape black and it like crisscrossed right here and wrappederman and I wore white satin gloves with it. It was something. But the other one that comes to my mind is when I decided to wear it was this was a designer I think too, some big person had me wear it was literally a bandana just tied around my boobs with like the point going right there and a really super super low like leather skirt with it.
Those were good looks. Did you save any of the clothes for your daughters? Do they get to wear them?
I wish. I'm a perjer Like. The only thing I have that's legit from the nineties is Kelly's cowboy boots, and I wear them all the time. Oh that's so cool. Yeah. They hurt my feet like no other, but I still wear them because Thank you, Jenny.
We've taken up way too much of your day. Thank you so much for coming on the bright side.
You're so welcome. I love chatting with you guys. Jenny, Thank you.
Jenny Garth is an actor, former star of Beverly Hills nine O two one zero, and the host of the podcast I Choose Me. She's also the founder the clothing line Me by Jenny Garth. From QVC, that's it for today's show.
Tomorrow, we're bringing you a live episode from Shine away. We can't wait for you to hear our incredible conversation all about imposter syndrome with author and chef Gobby Dolkin and co host of the talk Amanda Klutz.
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram and at The bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and feel free to tag us at Simone Voice and at Danielle Robe.
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See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.