If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or a mental health crisis, contact the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 (free, confidential, 24/7) or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.
The Memoir: I Choose Me — Publication Details, Title Origin, What It Covers
Jennie Garth’s second memoir I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose, and Embracing Reinvention publishes on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 through Park Row, an imprint of HarperCollins. The book is available for preorder and purchase wherever books are sold.
The title carries specific weight for 90210 fans. In a famous May 1995 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Garth’s character Kelly Taylor stood between two men — Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestly) — both demanding she choose between them. Kelly walked away from both, delivering the line: “I choose me.”
Garth told People the feminist sentiment went largely over her head at 23. “At that age, I didn’t really get it,” she said with a laugh. It was only at 50 that the phrase returned with full force. “The phrase just came back to me and it started to really resonate. Even though it took a while, I’m finally at a place comfortable choosing myself.”
The memoir covers:
- The aftermath of her divorce from Peter Facinelli, including self-medication, a medical emergency, and Canyon Ranch rehab
- Her real romantic feelings for Luke Perry during and after Beverly Hills, 90210
- Multiple miscarriages and an IVF journey with Dave Abrams
- The psychological weight of sudden fame — which she compares to “being in the Beatles”
- Her path to sobriety, forgiveness, and self-acceptance
- Her current relationship with Facinelli as co-parents and friends
It is Garth’s second memoir. Her first, Deep Thoughts From a Hollywood Blonde, published in 2014 and addressed the end of her marriage to Facinelli in less clinical terms. The new book revisits that period with the distance of over a decade and the clarity that sobriety provides.
Sources: People / AOL | The Hollywood Reporter | E! Online | AOL — Painful Past
Rock Bottom: The Stomach Pump Incident and Canyon Ranch Rehab
The most discussed revelation in I Choose Me centres on what Garth describes as her lowest point following the Facinelli divorce — a night of mixing alcohol and pills that ended in a hospital emergency.
According to the memoir, as reported by People, Garth self-medicated heavily in the months and years following the breakdown of her 12-year marriage. The self-medication involved both alcohol and pills, combined to a degree that required medical intervention — her stomach was pumped in hospital.
She told People the internal collapse was visible from the outside: “I noticed my light really dimming. I wasn’t putting off good vibes. I could see it in the mirror. I could look at the negative impact that that kind of grief and anger was having on me.”
Following the medical emergency, Garth entered treatment at Canyon Ranch — the luxury integrative wellness and rehabilitation facility with locations in Tucson, Arizona and Lenox, Massachusetts. Canyon Ranch specialises in behavioural health alongside physical wellness, and operates as one of the most well-regarded private treatment options in the United States for patients dealing with substance use in the context of trauma and grief.
Getting clean, she told People, did not instantly resolve the emotional wound the divorce had carved. The sting of rejection persisted. The grief over the end of 12 years of marriage — and the life she had built — continued to surface. What ultimately shifted was not the cessation of substances but a decision she made about the grief itself.
“There was a weird switch where one day I just said, ‘I don’t want to carry this anymore. It’s impacting my relationships and how I feel about myself. I’ve got to let it go. I’ve got to forgive him,'” she told People.
She confirms in the memoir that she is now sober.
If you or someone you know needs help with substance use, contact SAMHSA’s free 24/7 National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357. Crisis support is available by calling or texting 988.
Sources: E! Online | TMZ | Just Jared | InTouch / Yahoo
“Tormented”: The Facinelli Divorce That Started the Spiral
Understanding the depth of Garth’s crisis requires understanding how sudden and destabilising the Facinelli divorce was.
Garth and Facinelli met in 1995 on the set of the TV film An Unfinished Affair. They married in January 2001 after several years together and built what appeared publicly to be one of Hollywood’s more stable marriages — lasting 12 years, raising three daughters, maintaining a low-profile family life even as Facinelli’s career surged with the Twilight franchise (he played Dr. Carlisle Cullen across all five films).
In March 2012, Facinelli asked for a divorce. Garth’s 2014 memoir described the moment: “The ground that had been cracking and shifting finally split open and pretty much swallowed me whole: Peter came home and told me that he didn’t think he wanted to be married to me any longer, and he thought it best that we separate so that we could get a better sense of where we stood with each other.”
The divorce finalised in 2013. Garth was 40 years old, with three daughters, suddenly single after two decades in what she had understood to be a permanent relationship.
In the new memoir she describes what followed with greater clinical honesty than the 2014 book allowed. “I spent a good amount of years being hurt, sad, just tormented by it, and it eked out into all aspects of my life,” she told People.
The word “tormented” is deliberate. The divorce did not just end a marriage — it disrupted her sense of identity, her security, and her relationship with her own body. The self-medication was not a recreational choice but a response to grief and rage she describes as pervading everything she did.
Today, more than a decade later, Garth and Facinelli have reconstructed their relationship as co-parents and friends. The depth of that reconciliation became publicly visible in January 2025, when the LA wildfires threatened Garth’s home — and Facinelli invited her and current husband Dave Abrams to stay at his house. “Our home was spared,” she told People tearfully at the time.
Facinelli is now engaged to actress Lily Anne Harrison, whom he met on the dating app Raya.
Sources: Wonderwall / Yahoo | AOL — dating history | E! Online | Art Threat
Luke Perry: “My First True Love” — What Garth Reveals in the Memoir
One of the memoir’s most emotionally resonant sections addresses Garth’s real feelings for her Beverly Hills, 90210 co-star Luke Perry — who died in March 2019 at 52 following a massive stroke.
Perry played Dylan McKay to Garth’s Kelly Taylor across the full run of the original 90210 series (1990–2000). Their characters had one of the show’s central on-again-off-again romantic arcs, which required consistent emotional and physical intimacy on screen across a decade of production.
Garth told People directly: “I do think he was my first true love. Now looking back, I’m like, ‘You were just like every other girl in the world.’ Everyone imagined him as their first true love.”
She described how the on-screen relationship bled into something real and harder to categorise: “There were a lot of intimate conversations and moments between these two characters, and I think I got caught up in it and I allowed myself to think that it was real. I still believe that there was something real there. We had a very special relationship.” She added: “It got a little blurry.”
On the confusion between character and self: “I think I got caught up in it and I allowed myself to think that it was real.”
Perry’s death in 2019 — which came as a shock to his castmates — hit Garth profoundly. The Hollywood Reporter notes the memoir addresses the shock of losing him, describing it as something that left her “paralysed.” The loss forms part of the memoir’s broader exploration of grief — not just romantic grief but the grief of losing someone who had been a central figure in her life for three decades.
Sources: Extra TV | AOL — dating history | The Hollywood Reporter | Yahoo Canada / THR
Dave Abrams, IVF and Miscarriages: The Full Story
The memoir does not limit its account of personal crisis to the Facinelli divorce. Garth addresses the turbulent years of her third marriage to actor Dave Abrams, 44, with equal candour.
Garth and Abrams met on a blind date in 2014 — two years after the Facinelli separation — and married in 2015. The relationship ran into serious difficulty in 2017 when their attempts to start a family through IVF failed across multiple rounds, accompanied by miscarriages.
Abrams filed for divorce in 2018. Garth found out through TMZ — not through any direct communication from her husband — a detail that speaks to the breakdown of trust and connection by that point. The couple separated for approximately a year.
“I really wanted to give Dave a baby because he was young and all of his friends were having kids and I just thought that’s what he needed,” she told People. The impulse — prioritising his desire for children over her own needs and physical limits — reflects the people-pleasing pattern she identifies as a recurring theme throughout her life.
They reconciled in 2019. Garth credits the separation with forcing better communication: “I got really conditioned over the last 10 years to just zip it up and deal with it.” Since reconciling, she describes their relationship as having found a genuine stride. “It all comes down to people-pleasing. Once you really get to the core of what you want for your life? That’s when everything seems to get easier.”
Sources: People / AOL | E! Online | AOL — dating history
“Like Being in the Beatles”: Fame, 90210, and the Anxiety It Created
The memoir addresses not only Garth’s personal relationships but the psychological weight of the fame that Beverly Hills, 90210 delivered — sudden, overwhelming, and without any preparation.
She told People: “It was like being in the Beatles. There was no preparation for it. It was scary and unknown for all of us, and it was like sink or swim, just survive and figure it out as you go.”
The pressure of that fame triggered anxiety and a withdrawal from public life. She spent years being, in her own words, “so hard on myself” — grappling with body image issues and imposter syndrome that the show’s constant focus on physical appearance intensified.
Beverly Hills, 90210 ran on Fox from 1990 to 2000 across 10 seasons and 293 episodes — one of the defining teen dramas of the decade. Garth’s character Kelly Taylor evolved from self-centred socialite to one of the show’s moral centres, culminating in the famous “I choose me” moment in Season 5. The show made Garth a household name at 18 and kept her in the public spotlight through her mid-20s, a decade of intense scrutiny during which, she now explains, she was largely holding herself together through willpower rather than stability.
Sources: People / AOL | AOL — Painful Past | The Hollywood Reporter
Jennie Garth Timeline: Relationships, Career and Recovery
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1990 | Beverly Hills, 90210 premieres on Fox; Garth joins as Kelly Taylor |
| 1994 | Marries first husband, musician Daniel B. Clark |
| 1995 | Iconic “I choose me” Kelly Taylor scene airs; meets Peter Facinelli on set |
| 1996 | Divorces Clark |
| 2000 | Beverly Hills, 90210 ends after 10 seasons |
| 2001 | Marries Peter Facinelli |
| 2012 | Facinelli asks for a divorce; separation begins |
| 2012–13 | Self-medicates with alcohol and pills; stomach pump incident; Canyon Ranch rehab |
| 2013 | Divorce from Facinelli finalised; joint custody of daughters |
| 2014 | First memoir Deep Thoughts From a Hollywood Blonde published |
| 2014 | Meets Dave Abrams on blind date |
| 2015 | Marries Dave Abrams |
| 2017 | IVF failures and miscarriages; Abrams files for divorce |
| 2018 | Learns of divorce filing via TMZ |
| 2019 | Reconciles with Abrams; Luke Perry dies (March 4, 2019) |
| 2025 | LA wildfires — Facinelli shelters Garth and Abrams |
| April 8, 2026 | People cover story published ahead of memoir |
| April 14, 2026 | I Choose Me memoir publishes (HarperCollins / Park Row) |
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Jennie Garth’s memoir reveal?
I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose, and Embracing Reinvention (April 14, 2026) reveals that Garth self-medicated with alcohol and pills after her 2012 divorce from Peter Facinelli, reaching a point where she needed her stomach pumped in hospital. She then entered Canyon Ranch rehab. The memoir also covers her real feelings for Luke Perry, multiple miscarriages during her marriage to Dave Abrams, and her path to sobriety.
When did Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli divorce?
Garth and Facinelli separated in March 2012 and finalised their divorce in 2013 after 12 years of marriage. They share three daughters: Luca Bella (28), Lola Ray (23), and Fiona (19).
What is Canyon Ranch rehab?
Canyon Ranch is a luxury integrative wellness and rehabilitation facility with locations in Tucson, Arizona and Lenox, Massachusetts. It specialises in behavioural health, substance use recovery, and trauma treatment alongside physical wellness programmes. It is one of the most widely referenced private treatment facilities for celebrity clients seeking discreet, comprehensive care.
Is Jennie Garth sober now?
Yes. Garth confirmed to People in April 2026 that she is currently sober. She has described recovery as the foundation for the self-acceptance and peace she now experiences.
What does “I choose me” mean from Beverly Hills 90210?
In a May 1995 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Garth’s character Kelly Taylor refused to choose between Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) and Brandon Walsh (Jason Priestly) — instead telling both men “I choose me” and walking away. Garth says she did not fully understand the sentiment at 23, but at 50 it became the guiding principle of her recovery and her new memoir.
Did Jennie Garth date Luke Perry in real life?
The two never officially dated, but Garth describes Perry as her “first true love” in the memoir. She explains the on-screen intimacy between Kelly and Dylan made real feelings difficult to separate from fictional ones. “It got a little blurry,” she told People. Perry died in March 2019 following a massive stroke at 52.
What is Jennie Garth doing now?
Garth is sober, married to Dave Abrams (since 2015, after reconciling in 2019 following a separation), and has launched both a memoir and a podcast under the I Choose Me banner. She maintains a friendly co-parenting relationship with Facinelli, who is now engaged to actress Lily Anne Harrison.
This article is based on verified reporting from People magazine (April 8, 2026 cover story), E! Online, The Hollywood Reporter, TMZ, Just Jared, InTouch Weekly (via Yahoo), Wonderwall (via Yahoo), Extra TV, AOL, and Art Threat. All direct quotes from Jennie Garth are drawn from her People cover story interview published April 8, 2026. The memoir stomach-pump revelation is sourced as reported by People from advance book access, confirmed across E! Online, TMZ, Just Jared, and The Hollywood Reporter. All information about Peter Facinelli’s relationship history is drawn from public reporting only. This article presents Garth’s account as reported in her memoir and interviews.
If you or someone you know needs support with substance use, contact the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 (free, confidential, 24/7, no insurance required) or call/text 988 for immediate mental health crisis support.
