Christina Applegate Reveals ‘Married With Children’ Costars Trashed Her Behind Her Back on Set
Married With Children, one of Fox’s earliest hits, was created to be an alternative to the treacly family shows that dominated the late 1980s TV landscape. But as star Christina Applegate recently revealed in an appearance on former costar Katey Sagal‘s podcast Pie, that cynical, sarcastic energy that made the show a success continued off-screen, too.
Applegate — who starred in all 11 seasons of the show as Kelly, the beautiful but dim daughter of Sagal’s Peggy Bundy — told Sagal and her cohost, husband Kurt Sutter, that she was dealing with her mother’s cancer diagnosis and trying to cultivate her own spiritual life during the show’s run, so she had little time for the negative attitudes that were popular among cast and crew.
“I kind of felt like I didn’t belong,” the actress said.
“The vibe on our set was so fricking cynical,” Sagal recalled.
But according to Applegate, it was more than just cynical — it was downright vicious.
“I could hear being talked s*** about in my dressing room, on the monitor in my room,” Applegate revealed. “Like, I’d come up from rehearsal, and I could hear everybody on set, like, literally talking s*** about me. And I was like, ‘Wow. I was just there 20 seconds ago. Wow.'”
“It was that kind of environment,” Sagal agreed.
Despite the dog-eat-dog (or Bundy-eat-Bundy) environment, Sagal and Applegate have maintained a warm connection that echoes their on-screen mother-daughter relationship. “I just knew that you understood me and were not gonna judge me, and I felt very safe with you,” Applegate said.
Remind