Jennie Garth hasn’t seen Amanda Bynes since their What I Like About You days.
“I haven’t [spoken to her] in a long time,” Garth, 54, said in Us Weekly’s exclusive clip from this week episode of Amanda Hirsch‘s “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. “I would love nothing more than to reconnect with her.”
She added, “I would love it.”
Garth played Bynes’ “uptight” sister on What I Like About You for four seasons from 2002 to 2006.
“They brought me in to do a chemistry meeting with Amanda Bynes,” Garth recalled. “That show, What I Like About You, was so fun.”
Bynes, now 40, played teenager Holly in the series, who was being cared for by her older sister, Val, played by Garth.
Garth has been reflecting on her career while promoting her book, I Choose Me, which was published earlier this month. During a recent appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, Garth recalled working alongside disgraced television producer Dan Schneider on What I Like About You.
“I got called in by Will Calhoun, who was one of the head executives of Friends, and he was doing a new show with Amanda Bynes,” Garth recalled during the April 15 podcast episode. “[Schneider] was the other producer. He was kind of the Amanda side of it because it was starring myself and Amanda Bynes.”
Schneider, now 60, worked closely with Bynes during her Nickelodeon days. Calhoun, 61, and Schneider cocreated What I Like About You.
Shepard, 51, wondered whether Garth had gotten “bad vibes” when meeting Schneider, who has previously been accused of fostering a toxic workplace and acting inappropriately with child actors. (Schneider apologized for his past actions after the 2024 release of the Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV docuseries. Bynes has never made accusations against Schneider.)
“Yeah, I was, to the point where I said to Will, like, ‘I would rather just communicate solely with you. I trust you,’” Garth recalled. “‘I think that you have my best interests in mind and I don’t feel that way with your partner. So I’d rather just be with you.’ And he was like, ‘No problem.’”
Shepard’s cohost, Monica Padman, wondered whether Garth had witnessed Bynes being “destroyed” by Schneider on set.
“Not specifically him,” Garth said. “There were a lot of problems in the ecosystem of her.”
The full episode of “Not Skinny But Not Fat” with Jennie Garth drops Tuesday, April 21, on all podcast platforms.
