The actress who ditched Brad Pitt mid-date to go off with a hotter rocker

BarcelonaBrad Pitt is considered one of cinema's great sex symbols, but that doesn't mean he's always had luck in love. Actress Christina Applegate has just published her memoir, You with the sad eyes: a memoir, in which she recalls how she stood up Brad Pitt mid-date to go with a suitor she found more attractive, rocker Sebastian Bach, singer of the band Skid Row. It all happened during the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony in 1989, when she was 17, Pitt was 25, and Bach was 20. At the time, however, the famous one of the couple was Applegate, who was starring in the comedy Married... with Children.

In the book, the actress recalls that, before going to the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, her relationship with Pitt had always been platonic. In her account, she details how that night she felt "very powerful and confident" and that when the awards ceremony ended, she decided to leave with Bach instead of Pitt, who ended up having to drive the actress's mother home. "Obviously, he was extremely angry with me. We didn't speak for many years," adds the star of Dead to me. "Finally, we both concluded that I had behaved like a child and that, although he deserved something better, the time had come to forgive the girl who stood him up for the vocalist of Skid Row," she explains.

Sebastian Bach was the lead singer of the American hard rock band Skid Row, formed in 1986. When Applegate stood up Pitt, the band had just released their debut album, which catapulted them to fame. In her memoir, the actress recalls how she exchanged glances with the rock star throughout the awards ceremony that night, until they left together.

To justify her decision, Applegate resorts to humor and defends that at the time she had the date with Pitt, he was not yet "the man many people dreamed of." In fact, the actor didn't start to stand out until 1991, when he appeared in Thelma & Louise. "A long time later, two of Pitt's girlfriends, movie stars, asked me if it was true that I was the girl who ditched Brad during the MTV VMA. Apparently, he had told both of them separately that he was still angry with me," the actress recalls.

This is one of the kinder chapters in Applegate's memoir, which she published to raise awareness about multiple sclerosis, a disease she has suffered from since 2021 and which forced her to leave acting in 2023 after filming the third season of Dead to me, on Netflix. In the book, she also shares details of her difficult childhood – her mother was a heroin addict and had a partner who physically abused both of them – and her failed marriage to fellow actor Johnathon Schaech. "My life is not rosy. So I'm as honest and raw as I can be," she states.