Hart - Melissa explains it all: tales from my abnormally normal life

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For Mom, my guiding light and biggest fan.

For Mark, the love of my life.

For Mason, Brady, and Tucker: you gave me my favorite role yet.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

For years, people have been asking me why I havent written a book, and my answer is always the same: Because I dont know how it ends yet. I was talking about my book and my life, because the most satisfying end to any book is when the main character dies. But then I thought about this and realized that Im not sure how Id make the two coincide in a memoir. Without getting too dark, my life could be snuffed out before I get to write a book or I could end up in a straitjacket that doesnt let me use my hands. So I decided to just do it. Better now than never.

So here it is finally. And I could kill Oprah for going off the air before she could have me on to promote it.

When people meet me, they want to know what it was like growing up a child star, if I keep in touch with old cast mates, what happened during my half-naked-photo-shoot phase, how I spend private time with my husband and kids, about my best mom advice, what it was like to work with certain celebrities, and if Im as normal as they think I am. The short answers are: cool, sometimes, drugs, snuggles, wing it, fun, sometimes. If you want to hear me dig a little deeper, youll need to keep turning the pages.

You may have even bought this book hoping Id tell you how to get your child into Hollywood, meet your dream guy, vote, or raise your kids. But Im not big on lectures, and if you wanted an advice book written by a 90s teen star, you shouldve bought one by Jennifer Love Hewitt or Alicia Silverstone. I like to think of myself as more of a storyteller, so thats what Ill attempt to do throughout these storieslie on my imaginary couch and tell tales from my life that I hope will explain me to you.

This doesnt mean I havent learned anything from my past thirty-something years in this world. So I will now share with you my top twelve life lessons. They all relate to themes or stories youll find in this book. I hope theyre helpful. Follow them at your own risk.

1. Editors dont like when you overuse exclamation points, so dont do this when you write your own book. Save it for Twitter!!!!

It was also hard to write without smiley faces and LOLs to get my tone across. I hope youll tell people that this made you LMFAO anyway. Oh, and by the way, this book totally MAGG (makes a great gift)!

2. Own a lucky dress.

It doesnt have to be fancy, expensive, or covered in pennies and rabbits feet. Youll know it works when good stuff happens while wearing it. Owning lucky lingerie can be helpful too, but thats a whole other book.

3. If you want the world to see you as a good girl, dont party hard or often, unless its with my mom.

Preferably in a wig and go-go boots. Her, not you.

4. Tequila always leads to a memorable night, one way or another.

Best-case scenario: youll make new friends. Worst case: those friends will encourage you to get into a hot tub with no water or ride the bull at a Mexican nightclub. Err on the side of caution and bring along some sober friends to save your ass if you need it.

5. If you ever find yourself in a situation where youre exhausted and miked, dont make crass jokes. People who bravely bash you while hiding behind their computer screens will care too much.

Other inconvenient times to forget youre miked: when you get the burps from soda, have Gangnam Style stuck in your head, or if you dish about a roll in the hay from the night before.

6. The best part of being the boss is that you get to be bossy.

People like to say theres no I in team, but I never understood why this matters if youre in charge. You can also transpose the letters in the word team to get meat, and that has nothing to do with running an efficient business either.

7. Always eat a spoonful of lentil soup on New Years Day.

It brings good fortune and is full of B vitamins. Counting your coins is so much more fun when you have lower stress and depression, less PMS, a sharper memory, and a lower risk of heart disease.

8. Never wear mascara.

I borrowed this one from Mom, but I tell everyone itll make your lashes thinner than an Olsen twin by the time youre twenty-eight. Forget I said this if you want to offer me a contract to be the face of Maybelline.

9. Know when to ask for help.

If your own skills make you look wretched, chubby, or lame with a hot iron, lean on people who can make you seem pretty, slim, and not smell like burnt hair. Always give them credit for this, or youll seem like a tool. And then no one will be there to fix the streaks from your self-tanning experiments except you.

10. Having it all means holding your baby in one hand and drinking a Bloody Mary through a straw in the other, while your sweet and hunky husband massages your neck.

Bonus points if you can do this while running a conference call on your cell phone, taking the Xbox controller from your other, misbehaving kids, and keeping your slicked-back ponytail in place. (Note: I only achieved this once. But, man, that day I really had it all!)

11. If you get caught carrying sex toys through airport security, hold your head high and own it.

This goes for vibrators, furry handcuffs, and any sort of edible undergarments. Maybe you wanted a snack for the plane ride; they dont know. Lots of women have worked hard to earn us these sexual freedoms, and no TSA person can ever take that away from you.

12. The only regrets you should have are for the things you didnt have the guts to do.

Dont let fear get in the way of speaking your mind, kissing your coworkers, or jumping off cliffs with thirty-foot drops. Keep reading, and youll know what I mean.

Love,
Melissa

Chapter 1

CHAMPAGNE WISHES AND CLAM-FREE DREAMS

Actors often joke that show business should be called the broke business. Us Weekly only writes about celebrities whove made it big enough to have massive homes, designer clothes, and swank personal lives. But most entertainment people actually struggle their whole careers to succeed in music, movies, or TVonly to end up as background artists, stand-ins, and piano men at their local pubs. Lucky for me and my family, my career started rolling at four years old and hasnt stopped since. In fact, it helped rescue us from being broke, rather than caused it.

I come from a long line of blue-collar folks who pride themselves on their hardscrabble work ethic. Dad was a twenty-year-old cabdriver in Northport, New York, when he met my mom and got her a job as a cab dispatcher at the age of sixteen. Four years later, when they got pregnant with me and decided to have a shotgun wedding in the backyard of my grandparents house (I guess all that free love of the 70s came with some consequences), Dad had just started working with his brother Charlie, breeding clams and oysters at Charlies shop on Long Island. Every night, Dad came home from work in his dirty T-shirts and cut-off jean shorts, with grime under his fingernails and smelling like low tide. But Mom didnt mind at all. She knew what it was like to pound the pavement, too, since she occasionally sold trippy tie-dyed baby tees at street fairs, and after I was born, spent the next ten years either pregnant or breastfeeding my siblings, Trisha, Elizabeth, Brian, and Emily, all while managing our acting gigs. Mom and Dad were also following in their parents footsteps. Dads mom, Ethel, worked as a phone operator to support her four children when her husband died just weeks after my dad was born, and my moms father was a plumber, willing to build or fix anything for anyone to help support his wife and kids. So from a young age, I was aware that you had to work hard to pay for the things you needed or wantedand for what your family needed or wanted, too.