Jason Priestley (23 page)

I've spent most of my life being famous, and, yes, of course, much of it is fantastic. What's hard for people outside the business to understand is how overwhelming it is when fame hits a fever pitch and completely hampers your ability just to live a halfway-normal life.

When you're
too
famous, you can't go out shopping or eat dinner in a restaurant or even a bar without being interrupted by people wanting to talk—for just a minute—and get a picture or autograph or a hug.

As a twentysomething guy . . . I didn't always handle those situations all that well. I feel for anyone young undergoing that kind of sudden stardom, especially in this day where everyone has a camera and Twitter account to blast out every detail of every encounter with someone who may just be having a bad day.

My old friend Jennie had landed a starring role on the WB sitcom
That's What I Like About You
, and when she asked me to guest star a couple of times, I was happy to do so. Jennie played Valerie, a straitlaced woman living on the Upper West Side with a great job and boyfriend. Her life is turned upside down when her younger sister, Holly, played by Amanda Bynes, comes to live with her. Amanda was a very talented young actress who was being nominated for all sorts of Teen Choice awards. Both times I was on the show, I didn't even meet Amanda. She had a small group of friends, other teenagers, literally surrounding her at all times when she wasn't actually filming. They kept her in a bubble and away from everybody else.

I knew from experience how careful an actor has to be. When you're that young and making lots of money, there will always be people around who want to take advantage of you—or at least your social status and invitations. It makes it hard to have regular relationships when you're questioning the motives of everyone who wants to hang out with you. That, along with being relentlessly approached by fans every time you leave the house, can lead to hiding away and isolation, and I think
that
more than anything else is what gets to people.

It took me quite a while to learn to take fame and enjoy it for what it is, but it's hard to find that balance. This is tough especially when you're young, because famous or not, you're not particularly balanced! Fame is so fleeting . . . and to have emerged from my twenties and found a perfect level of recognition at this point in my life without falling apart is shocking. For a while there I didn't think that would be the case, and when I see somebody else struggling I have only one thought:
There but for the grace of God go I
.

O
ur wedding was simply spectacular. At the One&Only Ocean Club, a former private estate on the waterfront in the Bahamas, we hosted 145 guests. We had sent about 160 invitations, hoping that as many as could would make it to such a faraway destination. I estimate that 90 percent of our invitees showed up, which made us both so happy. The guests stayed for an entire week, with the wedding day right in the middle. It was definitely a destination wedding, an entire week of parties and entertainment and events. So many people traveled such long distances—from California and Europe, particularly—that they made a vacation of it.

Almost every single person in my family made it—my mother and stepfather, my father, my stepsisters, and of course my sister, Justine. Same with Naomi's family—almost everyone from her side came as well and looked stunning. They wore beautiful suits and hats to the wedding, in the proper English manner. Everyone who was important to us both attended; Ian was there, Jennie, Tiffani, Tori, Coop was there . . . unfortunately, Luke had a last-minute emergency, and Brian had to work. Still, most everybody I wanted to see was there.

About half the guests stayed at the Atlantis, while the other half stayed next door at the One&Only Ocean Club. Several couples brought kids, who could go to their own Kids Club. Between the two resorts there was almost too much for everyone to do. Gambling, clubbing, water parks, swimming, snorkeling, five-star restaurants, Jet Skis, sailing, barbecues on the beach, golf . . . every activity you can imagine in a wonderful paradise. The time literally flew by. The location was perfect.

The wedding ceremony itself was held late in the afternoon, after the strongest heat of the day had passed, in the gorgeous formal gardens. The reception was held afterward around the pool. A very unspoiled bride, Naomi spent the hours before the wedding doing the bridesmaids' makeup. She got so involved that she ran out of time to do her own the way she wanted, but of course she looked exquisite nevertheless. She wore a designer dress with our initials, J and N, embroidered in white on the train. No one could even see them; it was a tiny little secret hidden in the dress. She looked like an angel.

The Royal Bahamian Choir sang, and the official island Police Band played. Naomi had a great idea—as the ceremony ended and we walked back up the aisle as husband and wife, the choir burst into the classic “Oh Happy Day.” It was beautiful, perfect. Being big foodies, Naomi and I both were quite picky about the reception menu, and it more than exceeded our expectations. A huge pile of stone crab claws, literally four feet high, dominated a buffet table. Lobsters, shrimp, and every kind of seafood pulled directly out the nearby Caribbean waters were exquisite. The amount of food was overwhelming and every bite of it delicious.

Naturally, we flew in our wines from California. Our friends at Behrens & Hitchcock from the Behrens family boutique winery on Spring Mountain in Napa were kind enough to custom-bottle our wine. They rebottled their outstanding 2003 cabernet into double-magnum-sized bottles labeled with our wedding invitation, which was a wonderful treat. We set one out at every table, along with Veuve Clicquot and Moët White Star champagne . . . lots of it! There were loving toasts and funny toasts, and Barenaked Ladies shocked me by singing “Close to You” accompanied only by mandolins. A very cool moment for me.

A fireworks display, my surprise gift to Naomi, was a big hit. My new wife was truly surprised and moved; her reaction made me really glad that I had arranged the show. Everyone was wowed. It made for a fantastic climax to the night. Then, as if that wasn't enough, a few days later we headed off to the One&Only Palmilla in Mexico for a weeklong honeymoon with just the two of us. Hey, you only get married once . . . I figured we should do it up right!

A month later, we were at home, just an old married couple watching some silly reality show where the couple was getting married. The ceremony was at the One&Only Ocean Club, and as the bride and groom turned to walk back down the aisle, the Royal Bahamian Choir burst into “Oh Happy Day.” We couldn't believe it! Copied already!

I
've been coming to Los Angeles for pilot season since the 1980s, more than twenty-five years ago. It's like spring training for actors—you'd better get your game on. It's hard work—constant memorization and then throwing it away and immediately moving on to the next thing. Pilots are shot in March or April. Actors find out if the show gets picked up in May. The show goes into production in July (for dramas) or August (for sitcoms).

Some years you get a pilot right out of the gate; other years you don't get one until the end of March. Sometimes you get nothing. That's the life of an actor, though the older I get, the more I understand the gravity of pilot season and how important it is. I've had exceptional luck with pilots; every single one that I've shot has been picked up as a show . . . and
90210
ran for ten years. I only made one pilot that didn't get picked up. It was a show for FX called
DOPE
, about drug trafficking, and it starred Keith David and me. Naturally, out of all the projects I've done, I was most surprised that that one didn't make it.

In 2005, I shot a pilot for a show called
Love Monkey
for CBS. It was picked up and turned into a midseason show being filmed in New York. Six months into our marriage Naomi and I packed up our two dogs—my beloved elderly French bulldog, Swifty, and our Alaskan Malamute, Pris—and drove all the way across country to Manhattan on the southern route, stopping in Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, and Indianapolis along the way and squeezing in a few visits to friends. It was a four-day road trip, nothing to it.

We arrived in New York and had to find a place to live. Naomi found an apartment in Battery Park City that we both loved—actually not far at all from our old loft, the scene of many a good time.
Love Monkey
was a show about the music industry, starring Tom Cavanagh as a guy who started his own indie record label with a bunch of friends who helped him through his trials and tribulations at work and in his personal life. Judy Greer, Larenz Tate, Chris Wiehl, Katherine LaNasa, and I rounded out the regular cast. As much as I liked working on the show, and all my fellow cast mates, I would have liked to have had a bigger role, mainly because I like to work and have never been one to sit around, but at least I had a good time hanging out again in our old stomping grounds during my free time.

We started shooting in October and shot eight episodes . . . then the network execs canceled the show. Only three episodes ever aired. Too bad . . . it was a fun show, and I thought everybody involved did a great job. I thought that maybe the early shows focused a bit too much on the character's job in the music industry as opposed to his relationships, and audiences had a hard time becoming invested, but who knows? Believe me, you never really know. But after just a few episodes, when ratings did not deliver, the network pulled the plug. They don't mess around these days.

Fortunately, my wife was much more productive. Naomi was doing some very cool stuff. She had a great time in New York that winter, nailing down all kinds of amazing gigs. New York is the center of the fashion world, and Naomi became an in-demand makeup artist that year—for magazine cover shoots and editorials, but the coup de grâce was the Victoria Secret Fashion Show. That winter in New York was worth it just for that.

After our work in New York, we repacked the car and drove back across country, the northern route this time, visiting Chicago and Mount Rushmore along the way. We also made a quick stop in Sun Valley to visit some friends and ski, and somehow we stayed for two entire weeks. My agents were calling me nonstop, telling me to get home for the rest of pilot season, but the snow was so unbelievable that we kept deciding to stay for just one more day.

We did eventually return home, and not surprisingly I didn't get a pilot that year.

E
ven if I'd wanted to, I could never really leave
Beverly Hills 90210
behind. It was a cultural phenomenon that continued to live on and on. In 2006, the entire original cast made an appearance at the official “Season One Boxed Set DVD” release party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. It was a great chance to catch up with everyone—a couple of people had new partners and Tori, naturally, was accompanied by her new significant other.

When Tori left Charlie, after only a couple of years, for a married Canadian actor named Dean McDermott, it made a big splash in the entertainment news. I was shooting
Love Monkey
at the time in New York, and my costar mentioned something about it to me.

“Hey, man, your old buddy Tori hooked up with my old buddy Dean. You're really going to like him, he's a great guy,” Tom had told me.

“Good, glad to hear it,” I said, though I was sorry to hear about Tori's split. I liked Charlie. Still, fine, it was her life, I wanted Tori to be happy, and I trusted Tom's judgment. At the event, we were all being pulled in every direction, alone and in various combinations, by the media and the paparazzi most of the evening. Finally, while taking a breather, at some point I found myself inside the Hilton, in a hallway, with Dean standing alone nearby.

I walked over to him, extended my hand, and said, “Hi, Dean, Jason Priestley. Welcome to our big dysfunctional family.”

He stared down at my hand, then back up at my face. No handshake, no response, nothing. I was somewhat taken aback by this reaction.

“Well. Tom Cavanagh speaks highly of you,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” Dean said aggressively.

“Yeah. For some reason, he seems to think you're a nice guy.” I turned and left. Haven't spoken to him since.

I had a much more pleasant introduction to Brian Austin Green's new girlfriend. He was dating a young actress he'd met guest-starring on Kelly Ripa's sitcom
Hope & Faith
. Megan Fox was sweet and almost painfully shy. She was a natural beauty with a fresh-faced look—not surprising as she was only in her early twenties. She stood quietly off to the side as Brian was interviewed on the red carpet, fidgeting a bit and playing with her long hair as she waited patiently. None of the paparazzi gave her a second look.

A year later she would be one of the hottest female movie stars in the world. Once again, you gotta love Hollywood.

About a month after the DVD event, I happened to be home watching the local news one night, something I rarely got to do. Tori Spelling's yard sale made the broadcast that night. Apparently, she and Dean were moving now that she was pregnant. Her personal style had changed. She was getting rid of everything. That's what she told the press. Suddenly, I saw my very own wedding invitation on-screen. Apparently, it had gone for five bucks, including a personal autograph by Tori. She sold my wedding invitation to a stranger
for five dollars
.

I turned and looked at my wife, and she at me. We were both stunned. I couldn't believe how violated I felt. I couldn't understand how Tori didn't find that kind of behavior inappropriate. Sure, she got rid of everything she could, apparently, including plenty of personal mementos from her own fairly recent wedding, but that was her own stuff. Her privacy was one thing; mine was another. I couldn't wrap my mind around how she thought this was okay to do to a friend and coworker of nearly a decade. Naomi and I were both gobsmacked, to use a good English word.