Key Points
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Jaime Pressly is speaking out about her time on Mom after show creator Chuck Lorre’s comments about Anna Faris.
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Pressly appeared on seven seasons of the CBS sitcom alongside Faris.
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“I had seven wonderful years of working with an incredible crew and an incredible cast of women,” Pressly said, in part.
Jaime Pressly called the Mom set “refreshing” after Chuck Lorre took a shot at the sitcom’s star Anna Faris in his new memoir.
“I was there for seven years, but there [were] eight seasons,” the actress told E! News on Oct. 16. “I came on in the second season, but I had seven wonderful years of working with an incredible crew and an incredible cast of women, who were, all of us, just as beautifully flawed as our characters on the show were.”
Pressly played Jill Kendall on the show, a recovering alcoholic who is sponsored by Faris’ Christy Plunkett. Momran for eight seasons on CBS from 2013 to 2021.
“I think I just really thoroughly enjoyed being able to go to work with girlfriends every day,” Pressly added of her experience on the show. “All of us of a certain age, it was nice.”
Momcreator Lorre wrote about the show in his Sitcom memoir, published last week. The famed showrunner admitted that casting Faris wasn’t his first choice.
“I initially said no. I wasn’t sure Anna would be appropriate for this kind of material,” he wrote, noting that casting director Nikki Valko had initially put Faris’ name in the ring. After thinking about how he “bungled” his “working relationship with Charlie Sheen onTwo and a Half Men, Lorre changed his mind.
“Someone’s personal life is none of my business,” he wrote. “The mom in Mom would be, and should be, Anna Faris.”
Years later, Lorre wrote that his gut feeling proved to be correct when Faris departed theseries in 2020 following the seventh season. “After six years, she left the show for mysterious reasons that were not mysterious to anyone on the show,” Lorre wrote in his book.
Days later, Faris addressed Lorre’s claims in a social media post. (Entertainment Weeklyhas reached out to both Faris and Lorre’s teams for additional comment.)
“Yikes. Yes, I read a few things. I really didn’t see that coming. Of course it hurts,” the Scary Moviestar shared on Oct. 15. “Chuck gave me a job I loved, and for seven years I never took a day of it for granted. I’m proud of what we made together, and nothing changes how grateful I am for those people and those years.”
She concluded: “I’ve been sober for a year and a half. I was on a show about recovery and then I lived it. Now I’m healthy, I’m working, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. If anyone reading this is where I was, I hope that’s useful. It gets better. I’m proof.”
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Faris discussed her decision to step away from Mom ahead of the show’s final season during an appearance on Chelsea Handler’s podcast earlier this year.
“I didn’t know what my ambition [was],” the actress recalled. “I didn’t know where I stood, what opportunity there was.”
Faris explained that she was “disturbed by my lack of ambition” and, looking back, thinks she was “pretty depressed” at the time. “I was just having a distant relationship with this city and my career and wondering if I had enough money to retire.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
