Christina Applegate Now Cringes Over ‘Married With Children’ Audience Lusting for Her, Says Kelly Bundy Role Worsened Her Anorexia: ‘I Had to Be Skinny. I Was Size 0’

Christina Applegate’s memoir “You With the Sad Eyes” publishes March 3 and an exclusive excerpt is now available to read on Vulture in which the Emmy winner writes candidly about her body image struggles while filming “Married… with Children.” Applegate starred as Kelly Bundy on all 11 seasons of the classic Fox sitcom. She originally passed on the show after “I read the script and thought it was trash.”

“To me, and to my mom, it read like a bunch of poorly written potty humor,” Applegate explains. “I’d turned down ‘Married …,’ so the pilot featured another kid in the role of Kelly, but it just didn’t work so they came back to me. The casting director sent me a VHS of the pilot, and my mom and I reluctantly watched it one evening. I’m not sure what we thought we’d see, or why we even watched it…