Applegate reflects on her celebrity status while starring in Married…With Children. Although it wasn’t an immediate success, the show eventually gained popularity. Applegate reflects on how she played Kelly Bundy and how the character evolved over the course of the show. While Kelly was experiencing one version of reality, Applegate was experiencing another. She quotes her journals from the time. She often felt lonely and upset, still struggling with an eating disorder.

Meanwhile, the success of Married…With Children earned Applegate a role on 21 Jump Street, where she met and became enamored of actor Johnny Depp. Around this time, she also met actor Brad Pitt, whom she invited to the MTV awards. Bored by Pitt, she ended up leaving with Sebastian Bach, lead singer of the glam rock band Skid Row. It took years for Pitt to forgive her for this slight. Then, she discovered that Bach had a partner and child. In her journals, she wrestled with whether to keep seeing him. She reflects on her fraught state of mind at the time, noting that she was still a teenager.

Back on the Married…With Children set, Applegate continued struggling with her appearance and weight. Although she was known for being beautiful and often got attention for her looks, Applegate asserts that she always felt overweight, ugly, and desperate to change her appearance. In retrospect, she understands that her eating disorder was a trauma response. What she “desperately wanted was control” (105).

Applegate continues to explore differences and similarities between Kelly Bundy and her teenage self. While Kelly liked getting attention, Applegate didn’t. In 1988, Applegate had sex for the first time. Her journal entries trace her initial excitement through her deep regret. However, she also wrote about beauty and happiness. Applegate asserts that despite her struggles, she wanted to experience goodness.

Applegate also underscores how supportive her castmates on Married…With Children were, particularly Katey Sagal and Ed O’Neill, who played parents Pam and Al Bundy. They gave Applegate a sense of family, and she looked up to Katey. At the same time, Applegate admits that she sometimes felt like an outsider on set because she didn’t like sarcasm or negativity. She quotes her journals from the time, which show how depressed she was. She attributes her difficulty to the man she’d recently begun dating.

Applegate recalls the start of her abusive relationship with her unidentified ex-boyfriend. She first encountered him when she and Nancy visited the grave of Doors singer Jim Morrison, in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. The boyfriend was there with another woman, who would later call Applegate and insist that the two meet up again. A year later, the woman once more urged Applegate to contact this man, who had also been in touch with Nancy. Nancy similarly thought that he and Applegate would make a good match. Applegate finally reached out to him, and they began talking extensively on the phone.

They soon met up in person when he joined Applegate and Nancy for lunch at the glamorous West Hollywood restaurant Dar Maghreb. Applegate was taken by him, and they started dating. Just months into their relationship, they moved in together, and things became messy. Applegate’s journals show his negative impact on her. Her body image worsened, and she longed for her former relationships. However, she convinced herself that they were in love. Meanwhile, she started shooting Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Her boyfriend was upset that the filming took up so much time, and he would sometimes come to set to watch her, which made Applegate uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, tensions developed between Applegate’s boyfriend and her mother. Applegate hated that they didn’t get along but felt powerless to leave her boyfriend. Nancy tried to protect her, but Applegate wouldn’t listen. Still, Applegate’s journals show how preoccupied she was with the boyfriend; though she recognized that he treated her poorly, she couldn’t end the relationship.

Around this time, Applegate bought a Laurel Canyon property called Rogues Retreat. High in the hills, the house felt like a refuge, and she and her friends spent a lot of time there together. Meanwhile, her boyfriend became increasingly controlling, and Applegate’s self-esteem worsened. Few of her loved ones or coworkers liked him, causing Applegate to pull away from them. She identifies the numerous times he attacked and ridiculed her. Still, Applegate said nothing. In retrospect, she knows that she wanted someone to notice, step in, and rescue her. By chance, a group of young women (Shannon, Carolyn, Tommi, and China) came to her aid when she wound up at Sunset Social Club after a bad fight with her boyfriend. They listened to her vent about her relationship and encouraged her. She didn’t break up with her boyfriend then, but these women would become lifelong friends.

In 1991, Applegate discovered that she was pregnant. She was initially excited about the baby and wrote to the child in her journal. However, her boyfriend was furious and demanded that she get an abortion. She quotes her journals from the time, including entries where she tried to process this experience.

In the present, Applegate lies in bed and reflects on this era of her life. She reflects on the difficulty of being in and escaping abusive relationships. She also reflects on her journals, the girl she was, and all the things she longed for.