We all know a few TV storylines from the ’90s or 2000s that would NOT fly today — or at least would be treated differently. It’s rare it gets brought up by the stars of the show!
But Grant Show is the first to admit when he guest-starred as a love interest for a high schooler on Beverly Hills 90210, it was “creepy”!
Related: Jennie Garth CHILLED By Shannen Doherty’s Death — Especially After Luke Perry!
On this week’s premiere episode of Still The Place, a Melrose Place rewatch podcast, Grant — who played hothead hunk Jake Hanson on the primetime soap — came on to discuss the season 1 arc AND his three episodes playing the character on 90210:
“They cast me for Melrose Place knowing that they were going to put that character on 90210 sort of to springboard Melrose Place.”
The issue? Jake came in as a handyman hired by Kelly Taylor’s family — he was an adult man of 25 years old. And Kelly was a high school teen. So when sparks flew and they eventually shared a kiss when Jennie Garth appeared on the first handful of episodes of Melrose Place, it was… problematic! Show admits now:
“[It] what would now be illegal and, like, [part of the] Me Too [movement]. I think we only kissed, but still, you know, not good.”
Though he noted:
“How odd is it that we are more, sort of, prudish now than 30 years ago?”
Well, there’s prudish, which is definitely a thing, and then there’s just no longer being accepting of predatory relationships being depicted as cute or, heaven forbid, steamy.
Hilariously, Show made sure to point out there was nothing inappropriate happening in real life as actress Jennie Garth was 18 years old at the time to his IRL 25! He noted they were “relatively contemporaries” as actors and “actually both adults”:
“That’s not that crazy in real life [but] it’s knowing that it’s high school. Now, you put it in those terms [of the age gap], that’s creepy.”
That’s probably why, the now-62-year-old guesses, he didn’t see anything wrong with it when they were filming the episodes. But it actually didn’t take long for him to get the high school context and think differently:
“She was a grown-up, professional actress. I didn’t really think much of it at the time we were shooting. When I watched it, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, look at that.’… It’s different.”
Jennie herself weighed in on the onscreen romance just a few days earlier when the 9021OMG podcast welcomed Still The Place hosts Laura Leighton, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Daphne Zuniga in advance of their new show. She remarked to them how her Jake storyline was “creepy now that we look back at it.”
What do YOU think of that relationship, Perezcious readers? Are there other inappropriate romance storylines from that time that are even worse?? You can listen to the fill Still The Place episode (below)!
[Image via Beverly Hills, 90210/Melrose Place/Paramount/YouTube.]
