Jennie Garth Recalls Getting Stomach Pumped Amid Peter Facinelli Divorce

Jennie Garth is opening up about her personal struggles in her new memoir, “I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose, and Embracing Reinvention.”

Garth isn’t holding anything back in the memoir, discussing her real, intimate feelings for “90210” co-star Luke Perry, her painful divorce from Peter Facinelli, and her multiple miscarriages.

In the memoir, Garth revealed that she was self-destructive when her marriage to Peter ended after 17 years, recalling the night she had to get her stomach pumped at the hospital after downing alcohol and swallowing many pills.

The incident led to her stint at the Canyon Ranch rehab center.

In a new cover story for People magazine, Garth said, “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. And 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.’”

Garth stressed, “I spent a good amount of years being hurt, sad, just tormented by it, and it eked out into all aspects of my life.”

Things are now good between Jennie and Peter, who co-parent their three daughters.

Jennie later married David Abrams, but they went through a difficult time in their relationship in 2018 after she suffered several miscarriages.

She shared, “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.”

Garth went on, “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.”

Before her relationships with Peter and David, Jennie was in love with Luke, something that she’s admitting publicly for the first time!

The popular Dylan and Kelly TV romance spilled over into real life.

Garth recalled, “Everyone imagined him as their first true love. But it really was confusing. It got a little blurry at times. 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.”

Jennie insisted, “I still believe that there was something real there. We had a very special relationship.” 

In the book, Garth wrote about their physical connection, saying, “When Kelly was falling for Dylan, I was falling for Luke.”

Once the show ended in 2000, that fantasy faded too.

She explained, “All that confusion left for me, because he got married and I got married, and we became just really great friends. And that was just a silly dream. But my teenage self really believed it.”

Garth was close with Perry, but she had a contentious relationship with their co-star Shannen Doherty.

Along with saying that the “whole world pitted us against each other,” she added, “It did reach conflict, but at the end of the day, we did have respect for each other.”

In 2024, Doherty died from breast cancer.