“I knew every part of it was wrong,” the “Anchorman” actress writes in her upcoming memoir, “You With the Sad Eyes.”

Christina Applegate says she was abused by a babysitter as a child: ‘I felt sick and scared and sad’

"I knew every part of it was wrong," the "Anchorman" actress writes in her upcoming memoir, "You With the Sad Eyes."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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February 25, 2026 3:03 p.m. ET

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Christina Applegate in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2023. Credit:

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

- Christina Applegate says she was molested by a female babysitter when she was 5 years old.

- "I felt sick and scared and sad," the *Dead to Me *actress writes in her upcoming memoir *You With the Sad Eyes*.

- Applegate said that writing her book has "opened up so many wounds."

Christina Applegate is opening up about the abuse she survived as a child.

In her upcoming memoir *You With the Sad Eyes*, the *Married…With Children* actress details being molested by a female babysitter when she was 5 years old.

"I knew every part of it was wrong," Applegate writes in an excerpt published by PEOPLE. "I felt sick and scared and sad."

The *Anchorman* actress says that the traumatic incident profoundly impacts her to this day. "I never fully felt comfortable being touched, and that's true still," she writes. "I've never felt comfortable with it my whole life, really, and all because of that girl forcing me to do something I barely understood but that I knew was shameful."

Christina Applegate in Los Angeles on April 8, 2024.

Emma McIntyre/Getty

In her memoir, Applegate also writes that her mother was addicted to heroin and that her mom's abusive boyfriend also victimized her in her youth. "I think I had kind of the worst situation from 3 to 7," she says. "But there was stuff like that going on in all our homes. Single moms, men coming in and out, drugs."

The actress told PEOPLE that revisiting her childhood trauma while writing her memoir has been an emotional process.

"To be honest, it's actually opened up so many wounds, and it's okay because I'm a strong girl, I'm going to get through it," Applegate explained. "But it wasn't like get to the other end and be like, 'Ah, now it's out.' It was the stuff that I'd never talked about. The stuff that was behind closed doors and that no one but the closest people in my life have ever known happened."

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Applegate also explained why she felt compelled to share her story. "I had someone say to me, 'Are you doing this because you're being a victim?'" she recalled. "I'm like, 'No, I'm empowering other people out there.' At least I hope to."

She continued, "I hope that some girl or boy or anyone who's gone through being molested or beaten or anything I've gone through can go, 'Oh my God, okay. I'm going to be okay.'"

Christina Applegate in Los Angeles on Jan. 19, 2020.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

The *Dead to Me* actress previously alluded to her past struggles as she rejected the notion that she's an unrelatable elite in a 2019 interview with NPR.

"My past is no different and also probably a lot darker than a lot of people's," she said at the time. "So I really do take offense when people think that I've had a silver spoon in my mouth and that I haven't seen the dark side of life."

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*You With the Sad Eyes* hits bookstores on March 3.

*If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to **www.childhelp.org**. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.*

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