“Mom” star Anna Faris acknowledged that “of course it hurts” how show creator Chuck Lorre wrote about her in his recent memoir, in which he said he was “in fact, correct” about his initial reluctance to hire the actress.
“Yikes,” she wrote in a statement posted on Instagram Thursday. “Yes, I read a few things. I really didn’t see that coming. Of course it hurts. 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.”
In his memoir “Sitcom,” Lorre wrote that his turbulent experiences with Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men” fueled his suspicions about hiring the “Scary Movie” star for the show. But he acknowledged that he didn’t want to let that experience weigh on his ultimate decision.
“I wasn’t sure Anna would be appropriate for this kind of material. Then I thought about how badly I’d bungled my working relationship with Charlie Sheen,” he wrote in the memoir, adding: “Someone’s personal life is none of my business. The mom in ‘Mom’ would be, and should be, Anna Faris.”
‘Mom — which saw Faris play a recovering alcoholic navigating her new life as her mother (Allison Janney), also a recovering alcoholic, moved in with her — ran for eight seasons on CBS from 2013 to 2021. Faris left the show in 2020 to “pursue new opportunities,” but Lorre blamed her departure on “mysterious reasons.”
“As the years went by, it became apparent that my initial reluctance to hire Anna was, in fact, correct,” he wrote. “After six years, she left the show for mysterious reasons that were not mysterious to anyone on the show.”
Faris wrote on Thursday that she has been sober for a year and a half. “I was on a show about recovery, and then I lived it,” she wrote.
“Now I’m healthy, I’m working, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time,” Faris added. “If anyone reading this is where I was, I hope that’s useful. It gets better. I’m proof.”