Jennie Garth Reveals the Real Reason She Went to Rehab After Peter Facinelli Divorce

Jennie Garth is looking back at the end of her marriage to Peter Facinelli and, honestly, not sugarcoating any of it. In a new Guardian interview published Wednesday, May 13, the 90210 alum, now 54, admits she handled the 2013 divorce in ways she regrets — including a scary spiral with alcohol and anxiety meds that landed her in the hospital and then rehab. It is raw, it is uncomfortable, and it is the kind of behind-the-scenes-y detail most people keep locked up. She didn’t.

How it actually went down

• Garth and Facinelli (the Twilight alum, 52) split after 11 years of marriage, announcing their separation in March 2012. The divorce was finalized in 2013.
• Soon after the breakup, they met a couples therapist in Phoenix. Garth went in thinking it was a fix-the-relationship session; she realized in the room that Facinelli had already decided it was over.
• As she details in her April memoir, 'I Choose Me,' she checked into a hotel, mixed alcohol with anxiety pills, and passed out. Her assistant flew to Arizona, found her unconscious, and got her to the hospital, where doctors pumped her stomach. She went to rehab after.

The shame, the kids, and finally letting go

Garth says she spent years feeling humiliated by that episode and by how it ricocheted through her family — specifically her and Facinelli’s three daughters: Luca (28), Lola (23), and Fiona (19). Over time, she stopped carrying it like a scarlet letter. Her circle — her kids, her husband Dave Abrams, her friends — weren’t condemning her, and she decided she wasn’t going to keep condemning herself either.

'I don’t carry that shame around. You have to forgive yourself and realise that we all make mistakes, we all have to learn the tough lessons one way or another.'

The long climb back

She is clear about the timeline: healing was not quick. It took close to a decade to get past the sense that she wasn’t wanted, wasn’t enough, and had somehow failed her kids. Eventually, she hit the point where she decided she wasn’t going to live in that headspace anymore.

Life after the split

Garth married actor Dave Abrams, 44, in 2015. They separated in 2017 and he filed for divorce a few months later, but they reconciled in 2019 and are together now.

Facinelli is engaged to Lily Anne Harrison, and he says co-parenting with Garth is in a good place these days. In fact, he wishes they had gotten to this calmer, friendlier dynamic sooner, because trying to raise kids with someone you’re no longer with can be frustrating when your approaches don’t line up. Now, he frames their relationship as a real friendship — which, yes, is the goal when kids are involved.

The takeaway

This is one of those Hollywood breakups where the real story wasn’t the tabloid headlines; it was what happened after those headlines went away. Garth didn’t have the tools at the time, made dangerous choices, survived it, and spent years doing the slow work of getting okay. Today, she’s not asking for pity — just telling you exactly how messy it was and what it took to crawl out of it.