Jennie Garth Apologizes to 90210 Costar She Possibly Had a Hand In Getting Fired

During an interview on Garth’s 90210MG podcast with former costar Tori Spelling, James opened up about his unexpected exit, before Garth apologized for possibly playing a role in him getting the boot.

Setting up the conversation, Garth explained she thought it was a little unusual how James’ character, Mark Reese, was introduced to the show as if everyone had known him and were friends with him the whole time, despite never having been seen or mentioned in the previous six seasons.

“You just kind of go with it … I ran with it, did my job, it was fun,” James recalled, explaining that he was actually offered the role by Tori’s father, the late Aaron Spelling, after impressing him on a couple of failed TV pilots.

“He came to me and said, would you like to do 90210? I said, ‘Sure, why not,'” he continued. “That was a little scary though. There was a little bit of an intimidation factor going into that show. You were an iconic show, for one, and you were like a family already.”

It’s then that Jennie paused to “address something that’s the elephant in the room,” following allegations from a former writer that Garth didn’t feel comfortable with James and possibly didn’t want to kiss him, with “chemistry” issues being the reasoning for his exit.

“Let’s just have a really open conversation, because there are things out there that talk about why your character didn’t continue forward on the show,” she said, without totally diving into specifics. “We’ve heard a couple different takes on how that went down, one of them was the chemistry factor between our characters. I’m just curious for you, what that was like. Did you think you were gonna be on for more episodes and it ended sooner than you thought?”

“Yeah, I did. And I remember when [a producer] brought me in to have a meeting with him and told me they were letting me go. I was pretty bummed about it, to be honest,” he recalled. “But, hey, life is hard for all of us. We were all young, for one. I don’t have any ill feelings at all, it was a great job, it was a great opportunity … but I was bummed … I know you and I, I thought we worked together well.”

Saying he was a new dad at the time and also dealing with depression, he added that he thought he and Garth “did a great job” and “did some great work” together.

It’s then Garth seemed to admit that she did have words with someone about their chemistry.

“I’m really glad to hear you say that that. In seeing the character and then remembering and then hearing from different people how that all happened, I feel like, I was young too and when you’re young like that, you don’t really look at things objectively from different perspectives,” she said to him.

“And perhaps, me thinking, ‘I don’t feel like the chemistry between these characters is working out,’ I didn’t really look at how that impacted you or your future,” she continued. “And I just I’m glad to hear you say that you don’t harbor feelings about it, because I would hate that.”

“You don’t think at that young age the impact and us being in that bubble that we were growing up in, this weird power that was appointed to us as the stars of the show,” Garth added. “You look back, 30 some years later, like wow, how did that happen and why would it be?”

James said that, despite being let go prematurely, he still looks at the job as a “big learning experience” that earned him a solid paycheck at the time. He also told Garth he so appreciated her acknowledging what happened, before both Garth and Spelling wondered whether he ever had any conversations with Aaron Spelling about why his contract was cut short.

“It was the producer … he brought me in, sat me down and told me and I was like, ‘What did I do wrong?'” said James, adding that he never spoke with Spelling about it. “He said, ‘Well, we just decided to go a different way.’ I was like, alright, that’s fine. What are you gonna do?”

“I’m glad we were able to talk about that. I wanted to talk to you but I was also nervous about it and just wondering where you had landed with all of that after all these years, and if talking about it brought back stuff,” Garth said as the podcast came to an end, before offering up a true apology.

“But I’m sorry for my part in whatever happened, if that had a negative effect on you in any way,” she said, before he apologized as well and commended her for being “really cool” by bringing him onto the podcast for this conversation.

“God is smiling at you,” he said, just as the episode ended. Listen to the full podcast below!