Christina Applegate Spills on Who She Left Brad Pitt For After 1989 MTV VMAs Date

Christina Applegate is looking back on a wild night from her teen years when she ditched Brad Pitt after bringing him as her date to the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. In her new memoir, You With the Sad Eyes, the actress, 54, reveals that she left the future Oscar winner for Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach.

At the time, Applegate was 17 and at the height of her Married… with Children fame. She had invited Pitt, who was still an up-and-coming actor, to the Los Angeles awards show as a platonic friend.

She wore a Ceil Chapman gown that made her feel “incredible,” she writes, but by the end of the night, she was focused on someone else. “In fact,” she says in the book, “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.”

Applegate admits she had been watching Bach, now 57, all evening. She adds that Pitt, now 62, wasn’t yet the global superstar he would become with Thelma & Louise in 1991. Her decision left Pitt “to sullenly drive” her mother and a friend home, and she recalls, “Not surprisingly, [he] was subsequently very mad at me. We didn’t talk for many years after that. Eventually, we agreed that I’d been a kid, and though he’d deserved much better, it was time to forgive the child who dumped him for the lead singer of Skid Row.”

This isn’t the first time Applegate has addressed the infamous night. In a 2015 appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, she refused to name the mystery man at first, joking, “How many fifths do I get? … I have to say it? I don’t have to do nothin’!” She confirmed the man was famous, not an actor, and noted that she and Pitt never dated after that night.

Applegate, who is now married to musician Martyn LeNoble, 56, includes the story as part of a larger look at her life in You With the Sad Eyes. The memoir also covers her childhood, past abusive relationships, motherhood, and her battles with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. “We all have come from somewhere, some places more painful than others, and it’s what you do with it, I guess,” she told PEOPLE. “This is not an inspirational book by any means. But it can inspire.”

It’s fascinating to see Christina Applegate share such a candid story from her teen years. It’s a reminder that even stars make bold, unexpected choices when they’re young. What do you think about her ditching Brad Pitt for a rock star? Share your thoughts in the comments.