That’s youth gone wild for you. In her new memoir, Christina Applegate revealed one of her regrets from when she was just 17: ditching her eight-years-older date to the 1989 VMAs, Brad Pitt, for none other than Sebastian Bach.
Related
In the actress’ You With the Sad Eyes, which hit shelves Tuesday (March 3), she recalled the time she sidestepped her fling with a 25-year-old Pitt — with whom she had been “platonic pals” for a while — to seek out the hair metal rocker during the award show. “I had spent all night staring at Bach, who was then a long-haired hunk fronting the band Skid Row,” she wrote, according to multiple outlets.
“I hate to put it like this, but Brad back then was still making his way as an actor, and he wasn’t yet THE Brad Pitt, the man of so many people’s dreams,” she continued bluntly. “I felt so powerful and sure of myself for once that when the awards show was over, I left with Sebastian Bach, not Brad Pitt.”
While Applegate was off pursuing Bach — who, unbeknownst to her, had a girlfriend and 1-year-old baby back home — Brad was “left to sullenly drive” the Dead to Me star’s mom and friend Lori Allison home from the ceremony. “Apparently, at a gas station on the way, Brad almost got into a fight with a bunch of gang members and, not surprisingly, was subsequently very mad at me,” she added in her memoir.
Such was the end of Applegate’s short-lived romance with Pitt, who she says didn’t talk to her for “many years” after the fact. But “eventually, we agreed that I’d been a kid, and though he deserved much better, it was time to forgive the child who dumped him for the lead singer of Skid Row,” she concluded. “Of course, Brad is now THE Brad Pitt, and Sebastian Bach … well, he still has long hair, I guess.”
Applegate would go on to be married to actor Johnathon Schaech for about four years before she’d wed again, tying the knot with Dutch musician Martyn LeNoble in 2013. Pitt, on the other hand, shot to global fame in the ’90s as his movie career exploded, at various points getting engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow, marrying Jennifer Aniston and later Angelina Jolie, with both of his marriages ending in divorce.
As for Bach? While Pitt may not have been “THE Brad Pitt” yet, the musician had already debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 with two tracks — “18 and Life” and “Youth Gone Wild” — by the time of the ’89 VMAs. “I Remember You” would enter the chart shortly afterward, eventually peaking at No. 6. And in 2026, Bach is gearing up to step in for Dee Snider for Twisted Sister’s upcoming 50th anniversary shows, as announced the same date of Applegate’s book publishing.
