Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli have come face to face to unpack their divorce more than a decade later.
Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli are candidly combing over their divorce -- the good, the bad, and the very, very, very, very difficult.
In a newly aired second part of their sit-down for the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum's podcast, I Choose Me, the former husband and wife broached how they felt about each other dating other people after their 2012 split -- and how they felt it impacted their three kids. In the course of their 11-year marriage, the exes welcomed daughters Luca, 26, Lola, 21, and Fiona, 17.
"Neither of us got married right away, but we both had a few relationships left and right, and the girls would get close -- I know from my perspective, your relationship after we were divorced, the girls got close with your then-girlfriend and that was very, very, very, very difficult for me." While Garth did not name the girlfriend she was referring to, Facinelli began dating his Loosies co-star, Jaimie Alexander, in 2012 and confirmed their engagement in March 2015. Less than a year later, they announced the end of their engagement.
She continued, "I wondered how you felt when another guy came in. I don't think I ever was really serious with anyone until Dave [Abrams]."
Facinelli called it a "catch-22" because he had a "longer-term person" getting close to their girls and said it was hard to watch them have another person leave. "I had nothing that I could do to help that or not have that happen," he explained. "It was just -- it's what happened and I felt bad having them be an effect of that because I was with that person for a few years."
Addressing Garth dating, he said men would come into their lives with her in "shorter spurts."
"They would go on vacation with a guy, and then kind of get to know them and then you'd move on to somebody else. It was you kind of dating... For me, it was like I just kind of had to trust you, you know. I had to go, ‘OK, well, she trusts this person, then I have to trust them.'"
However, Facinelli explained that he had a different point of view of the situation and felt that "the more love that the kids had, the bettter."
"I think it was harder on you for that being the mom watching another person come in," he said.
The Twilight alum -- who has since welcomed a son with his fiancée of four years, Lily Anne Harrison -- praised Garth's current husband, Dave Abrams, calling him "a wonderful guy." She and Abrams wed in 2015, separated in 2017, and called off their divorce in 2019.
Today, the actor looks at their new relationships as a benefit to their daughters, and said they are "incredibly fortunate" to have had these step-parents "that have added to their personalities, that they've grown through them as well."
Meanwhile, Garth recently shared an update on one of their daughters, Fiona, who went to prom. "This will be my second to last prom with my girls. It’s always so fun helping them to get dressed up and feeling beautiful," the actress wrote on Instagram. "Enjoy every moment of the journey. It passes by so fast… ❤️."
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