An Update From Jennie
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You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hey, everybody. Welcome to I Choose Me. I wanted to hop on and just give you guys an update because we've been flooded with, you know, text messages and DMs, people worrying about us, wondering how we're managing. So I just want to give you an update on these horrific fires that are happening here in Southern California and an update on

Also on the I Choose Me live event. So I'm going to have my husband join me now because I don't know, I just need him by me right now. Hey, babe. Hi. Yeah, it's been a weird week, a weird start to 2025. Right. To say the least. I thought this was going to be a good year. Yeah, we were jumping into it, all the resolutions and new beginnings and all that. We thought this was going to be a great year. We were...

Going in strong and so excited for what was to come and then this just came out of nowhere Yeah, mother nature has you pivot on your normally scheduled program Yeah, have you ever been in a situation like this like a natural disaster? No, no make you've been in hurricanes before I grew up on Virginia Beach, Virginia and we went through some hurricanes but you know, I was you sleep through them or you know, nothing and

Nothing this like I mean, it's catastrophic. It's almost like biblical Like what's happening and it's still happening right now. It's you know, I mean it's not over We have another windstorm coming next week and I think everyone's on edge. Yeah Why don't we start like what how did this whole thing come into?

into our life, like on our radar. I don't even remember what was the, how it started, how we got informed. I, you know, I know the news and this was being predicted on Monday and they were telling us that it's going to be extreme winds and especially where we live. We were getting prepared for all the strong wind warnings that we were getting. We are remodeling. So we have some stuff outside that we needed to tie down and kind of get a hold of. And

Tuesday afternoon, the winds were picking up strong and obviously the Palisades fire had started. And we were all kind of glued to that, watching that, not knowing. I mean, I was reaching out to friends that I know. I know you were as well. And giving us updates on, oh, my children's school just burned down. And then it was so far away, but so close.

And it was about six o'clock. We had, I think we just ate, kind of sitting around watching the news. And then a chair flew by outside and I thought to myself, wow, I didn't really tie down everything sufficiently. And I walked outside, I looked up and there was a fire. And this was the Eaton Canyon fire. And which at the time, you know,

Probably five miles away. We could see the flames though from our house. It was like one range, one hill over. I felt like. It felt like it was right next door. Yeah. It was really scary. And so I think that's when panic like.

set in definitely panic set in came back in i was like wait i thought the fire was in the palisades we're not close to the palisades so we're fine and then all of a sudden and all of a sudden eaton canyon broke out which if anyone doesn't know it's close to altadena my business partner has a house in altadena so i saw on the news that it was eating canyon i immediately called him he did not answer he sent me a text him and his wife

are literally down the street. We are getting bags and we will call you when we're safe. And so then that caused us to kind of go into heightened alert. You know what is wild is that all of our daughters were here with us under this roof because, well, two of them live with us, but Luca had flown in to help me with the I Choose Me Live event. So it just happened that we were all here, which...

Is never. I know, but that's, it was such a good thing. I think I felt a little secure, more secure. Just knowing that they were all near me and I could protect them. We can protect them. And we hadn't been like that since COVID. When did we real, everything is such a blur. Like the timeline. I can't. I think everybody, because this is so fresh. I think for everybody, I think we're all as a city.

in a state of trauma shock shock trauma i feel numb everybody i i've talked to says they just feel numb and i can still relate because you're so shocked and then you just feel immobilized and like with fear and and you want to help and how can i help and um so after i called my business partner

He told me we have a friend that lives another, like probably on another ridge that we are close to. And he was giving us updates. So basically- Because he was a little closer. He was a little closer. He could see it. He saw that the wind direction was moving away from us. Mm-hmm.

But then later on at night, we know that it switched. It switched. That's the thing that's so wild about these fires. You're on one side of it and you're a mile away, two miles away, three miles away. And then all of a sudden the wind will swirl or switch and the wind is just insane. And on Tuesday night, we had wind gusts up to 80 to 90 miles an hour. Yeah, I felt like our house was going to fall

fly away, crumble, break every wall. I thought all of our windows were going to explode. Absolutely. The kids were terrified. Everybody was terrified, but we weren't getting, we didn't get an evacuation notice yet. We were just sitting tight. But we did start to prepare. So we did start making bags. I got all the cars situated. I think you were the first one to start packing bags. I just was, I couldn't

I was so freaked out. Well, yeah, I had some people calling me and then talking to, you know, Johnny and then talking to our friend Kevin. And by that time it was, you know, 839. So we had grad, we could gradually start to prepare and which we did.

got to be around one o'clock the family the girls you everybody was getting pretty nervous still no evacuation we had had like i i don't know at that time if we had a warning but we were definitely smelling smoke you could see the fire warning we had a warning it wasn't like evacuation mandatory right yeah that's right and so you could start to smell the smoke you could start you could definitely you could see it the whole time so

We all made a decision. We called Peter and we all made a decision to go over there. I made a decision to stay back and stay the night here because we do have a sick dog. She's 14. We didn't want to move her.

So you and the girls, you all drove separate and you went to Peter's. Yeah. We took all the cards that we could and left you one. Because you had filled up both of the trucks. I had both the trucks filled, yeah. I was like ripping pictures off the walls. Our walls are all still bare. But that was later when we were fortunate to come back to the house in the morning. But you all spent the night at Peter's. I stayed here.

I tried to set an alarm for every two hours to keep updated. I woke up at four o'clock in the morning and seeing that, oh, from our window, I couldn't see any actual fire. I could just see smoke. So I was like, oh, that's a good thing because it was gone. And then six thirty in the morning, I got a notification. My friend reached out to me who was on the other side. He was like, we are leaving now.

We are getting out of here. It's very close. And by then we had had a full blown evacuation where we were. That morning was a blur, just trying to get everything situated and get everything out and get to you. While also, you know, it's surreal thinking that you're not going to see your place ever again. And that's why it's so...

It's so difficult because our house did survive. Yeah, do you feel... I feel kind of like... Guilty. A little bit of survivor guilt that our house survived. I feel...

so bad for everybody who doesn't have a home now and everything is gone. And I feel like, how can I possibly even be happy again? I feel terrible for the Palisades, the people that lost their home, but also the people that maintained that home and the plumbers, the pool people, the cleaning services that now don't

you know, they don't have a job. So it's a trickle-down effect that has just hit everybody in the city. And like I said, it's still not done. It's slow...

And luckily right now, this is Friday, we don't have winds like we did. But it's still so scary because new fires keep just popping up in the most random places around the city. When that one in Hollywood on the Hollywood Hills came up, that was terrifying. Because that is like Palisades, another very, very densely populated area. Right, because we had evacuated in the valley to Peter's.

And so now we once we were, yeah, we were evacuated to Peters and we thought, OK, we're safe over there the next morning. And then it started and then we changed. Like all of a sudden we were like, wait, we need to evacuate from our evacuated. Right. And then we, you know, that morning, which was Wednesday morning around 11, when I was back at Peters, said hello and

We had watched the news and it was still over by us, but it was, you know, they were getting, they were switching the direction. So I said, we have time to go come over here and get some more stuff. And so when we came over here around 1130, 12. Oh, that's when I ripped off the pictures. That's when you ripped off everything on the walls. And then we got pictures in big chest and we loaded up the truck and basically took. I mean, there were some strange things like what I was thinking in those moments because I was.

I didn't know what to take when we first initially left. Well, you were in shock because we were trying to get everything kind of going. I was doing sprinklers and stuff just to kind of, you know, embers were flying five miles and we were a mile away from where this flame was.

So, you know, tried to saturate that and you were inside watering the plants. I thought if the plants, they're going to feel sad from the fire and it's going to dry them out. And I don't know, I wasn't even thinking clearly. I just think that that is another, it's so surreal what's happening. You just, in that panic moment, you don't even know what to do. And you're in a house where you look outside and it's a ominous glow of

Of like fire and smoke. And it feels like. The fire is like right next to you. Yeah and that's when I think. I just start shaking like.

Unintrollably. I could barely rip things off the walls. My hands were trembling like so much and I was full-blown sweating and panicking. Also, it's just so odd that when we're loading up the car, it's so quiet outside and it's just still. So quiet. Eerie. Ash falling. So eerie. I think I even went to the

to the orange tree and tried to take off oranges to save them. I don't know. Some, um, the girls were like, when we were loading the truck and everybody was helping, it was like, what are those oranges in the back of the truck? Um,

I was like, I don't know. Mom just picked like four oranges and threw them in the back of the truck. What did you think to take? Because it was kind of like every man for himself. And I saw that you had packed up some interesting items as well. What was interesting? Like your vintage Eagles sweatshirts and hats. Yeah. Well, like you throw oranges in the back of the truck. I didn't.

Your brain is like, I don't know, but I know that I don't want to lose this. I don't want to lose this and I don't want to lose that. I took all our family pictures and memories and you took your sweatshirts and your hat. Some vintage Eagle stuff that I couldn't get back. Well, I helped you with the pictures. You did. This is the thing. You were so amazing because...

You don't ever ask or like judge anything I do. Usually when the shit hits the fan and stuff, you're like, tell me what to do. I'll do it. You, you were like a Sherpa from heaven schlepping everything, loading heavy things into the back of the truck.

Organizing us and trying to keep us all calm. Yeah. In those situations, you know, your brain is trying to rationalize it while also trying to be really quick and aware of what's going on. And the unknown is, it's crazy. When you're in that feeling of adrenaline rushing through you and you're scared and you just kind of pick random things. But I went straight for the pictures and, uh,

Things like that. And I didn't take clothes. I took one clothes, one outfit. I don't even know. No underwear. Well, look, there's the sound. Yeah. Did you guys hear that sound? The fire sound. There's an app that everybody's been on and that like sound is seared. It's like a notification warning and where another fire has popped up or what's going on here. But in true reflection of grabbing things,

Yeah, I just, when you're in that moment and you're trying to save what you need to save, I guess there was really nothing we really needed to save because we were already all saved. The girls were fine. You know, we were just getting convenient things. Yeah, random. We had all the dog stuff. That was the most important thing to us, I think. And then the girls packed a bag.

I just, you know, just also thinking about the people who didn't have any time or the luxury. And it was so quick. And it was literally the perfect storm in the Palisades, how that hit. And then how it hit in Eden Canyon. Even when we were at Peter's house and we got that evacuation warning for his house. Yeah, when the running canyon came up. That was...

terrifying like well everybody were right because it was close and we were close to that because we were also like where are we gonna go now right the next plan we had all gotten settled in we all had a family dinner together which was really nice yeah i mean that was a like a we've we had all never done that before well we've done it but this was not in his home or not in our home

I don't remember, but I feel like... It was nice. Lily, the Jack, the girls, we ordered Chinese food. It was enjoyable. And for that brief moment, we were not thinking about... Yeah, we turned off the news for a minute and just sat as a family and tried to have, you know... Some sort of, you know, normalcy. ♪

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, the

Does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really Not Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That?

When we had Peter on the podcast and we really opened up some new channels of communication and

you know, sort of had a kind of restart to what our relationship should be. I think that was amazing. And that probably was the opening, the door opening for us to be comfortable enough to even ask him, can we come and stay at your house and,

And without hesitation, he was like, absolutely. And we went there and all our family was together. The girls, Luca, Lola, and Fiona were there. He was there. Lily, his fiancee was there. And Jack, their almost two-year-old son. And all of our dogs. So we all just sort of really hunkered down and watched the news together.

and it was together it was an enjoyable experience I told I don't know about enjoyable like could anything be enjoyable right now I mean I think that with everything going on in my brain I was I was so grateful to be in his place and be safe be safe and the girls were safe and everybody was safe it was like oh but

Okay, yeah. Let's make the best of this. I did ask you in bed. I was like, do you feel weird sleeping in your ex-husband's house? I said no. I really didn't at all. I didn't, but I do have a confession to make. I have a confession to make. So he, I guess Lily had made some

banana bread with chocolate chips in it and it was just sitting there on the counter and nobody was in the kitchen so I kind of ate it all. Sorry guys. Well she had me go back in there. I had some and I was like cutting pieces. We stayed in the guest house so we had our private space. It was like a back house. It was a garage converted into

a bed. It might smell like a campfire too because all of our clothes when we got back smelled like a campfire, but they're all right. So going back to the banana bread for a second,

I know who eats the sweets and the banana breads in that house. And his name's Peter. So I went back later and I was like, hey, is there more banana bread? And he's like, no, I think it got eaten. I said, who ate it all? And he was like, I don't know. I said, oh, I know who ate it all. And he gets up and he walks out and he leaves the room. He goes into the kitchen and I'm like, oh, okay, bye. And he comes back in with the tiniest little saran wrap wad of

And it had literally one bite of banana bread left in it. And he gave it to me, you guys. He let me have the last bite that he was hiding for himself. So nice. I mean, that's so kind of him.

The girls were making fun of him because I walked in from the guest house to get some water and then peanut butter filled pretzels with chocolate on top. And he was making a sandwich at 11 o'clock at night. Yeah. I think we were all stress eating. Everybody was probably doing things that they... I have no plan to stop stress eating, by the way. I didn't think anyone would be in there because I was trying to go steal chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels. I was not only stress eating...

I was stress vacuuming. Is that, I mean, I guess that's good for my heart. Like I was exercising in some way, but I vacuumed this entire house like four times just because I didn't know what else to do. I think at one point I was like, I have to, I have to take a break from the news. I need to turn on. And I had a phone, I had a phone and TV. And I think you may have told me we need to take a break. Yeah. But it's almost impossible. Yeah.

But we all kind of managed to keep our cool until we never got an evacuation notice there. So I think that that was the most important, just listening to every instruction and just really adhering to it. And of course, at that point, we had to make the difficult decision to postpone the I Choose Me Live event. We've been working really, really hard and our whole team, everybody at iHeart, all my family members have been working hard.

to get us ready for the most exciting event that we were so proud to be throwing. And everything was falling into place with that. And then all of a sudden this happened and we had to make the decision. I think we made it on Wednesday that we needed to let it be known that we couldn't do the event. We had to postpone it. There was

I mean, not a question in anybody's mind that it was important to us that we kept our, everybody involved safe, all the guests that were flying in, all the panelists that were flying in and there to do it. It was not, it was like, of course this needs to be the decision. Absolutely. But I still have to admit afterwards, I felt like sort of like, what now? I felt

I think everybody in the city is in a what now place. Yeah, that's the thing. And that was what made the decision easy to make was knowing that so many of our neighbors and our fellow Angelenos were in this state of emergency. I did feel such a sense of gratitude yesterday for our situation and

Yeah, you came home and like the house was still okay. And being over in Altadena with my business partner and his house is still standing. But the smoke damage, because it was an older house, they had it all locked up. But the smoke blew the window open. You could see the soot inside and the smoke damage. And he's not going to be able to go back there and live forever.

You know, who knows? Not to mention his entire neighborhood is burned down. And his entire neighborhood, even walking through it yesterday and seeing the destruction of, you know, you'll notice that one house is here and then three houses are gone and then two houses are there and then four are gone.

I was asking questions and the firemen, they just did not have the resources. They didn't, they couldn't contend with 80 to 90 mile an hour wind. So they didn't have water, right? They were, had to conserve the water. So when they were coming up to places, if they saw that a house was gone, they were like, we can't save it. We'll try and save the house next to it. So they doused all their resources on that one house and they moved on to the next situation that they had to fight like that. And yeah,

It's just scary. There's nothing that anyone can do. And I think that that is frightening. And I mean, it puts a lot of things into perspective, but you're working so hard on the event coming up and so wrapped up into that and you had to cancel it because that is small, it pales in comparison. Yeah, definitely. It was not the time to quite yet to come together again.

But it will be, and I can say without a doubt that we are going to find a date to reschedule it because I kind of think now more than ever, we need to feel supported by our community. And I think that having the event in some capacity will offer us all like some solace and some solidarity and that feeling of support.

being being neighbors being friendly being kind and having support so we're definitely going to be rescheduling it um we're just trying to find a date in the near future stay abreast to any new developments with that on our social media platform on i choose me live we'll update you guys yeah yeah it's it's uh

It's something, I mean, even now we have winds coming back next week. It's Friday and Tuesday. Now we have to prepare for something else. It's crazy though. What is really pissing me off right now is the looters, the people that are robbing from people and the people that are setting up fake like GoFundMes. I know my friend Cameron Matheson who lost his beautiful home in Altadena last

He's devastated, his family's devastated, and someone is online using his situation to raise money for themselves, basically. They have no connection with this. And I saw that he went on Instagram earlier today and said, don't, that's not me. I'm not asking for money. So anytime you see somebody trying to get money online,

For me, it's not me. Right. Which just sucks. It's sad. Well, you know, they brought in the National Guard, so that's good. Johnny and Altadena, that's what everyone was afraid of. Looters and people taking advantage. We were afraid of it, too, when we left the house. Yeah, because we were told we do have a gate. We were told to leave the gate open in case firemen have to come in and they need access. I mean, that being said, you live in the city and

with all these crimes and just everything that's been happening. I didn't want to do that because they know that our neighborhood just got evacuated. So who's to say that no one's going to come in and

It's just another added thing to be worried about. And then you think to yourself, why am I worrying about that shit? Because the house is going to burn down anyway. I might see my house for the last time. But when we got to come home and we found out that our house was saved and we just, we are so grateful. It was everyone working together because I think it was

We are so grateful that we're so fortunate and so blessed to have had our house stay through all of this. And yeah,

The neighborhood was is a hot mess though. Like there's a lot of trees around where we live. There's so many downed trees and broken limbs. That's what a lot of people are missing is the wind damage that this storm caused in and of itself is like. Is one situation. Another situation. Yeah. That's one of the worst wind events I've ever seen. I've been here 23 years. Yeah.

wild, wild winds, scary winds. Yeah. I mean, my heart still goes out to... My heart goes out to all those people and my prayers and thoughts and wherever you are. It's just really...

puts everything in perspective. Yeah, now it feels like even though the fires are literally still burning and burning down houses and people are still getting evacuated all over the city. Yeah, and you're just like on pins and needles because it's happening. Like if you look at a map, it's sort of surrounding the entire city. And so you feel like a sitting duck somehow or like you're just waiting for...

I mean, and you can't go outside. Everybody's been advised to stay inside. I own a bar restaurant and we have a patio and no one's there and we're trying to be a haven for people to come in and

But, you know, everybody should just stay home because of the smoke now and because of the unhealthy air. Because now the winds have completely stopped and we're in just a stagnant phase. But they're coming back. But they're coming back, yeah. Yeah. I'm so scared. Like, every time the alert goes off on my phone, it's the scariest feeling and it shoots like...

the fear into every fiber of your body and you're like ready you're on edge and ready to take action because that's the thing like we do live in a hillside and there is no humidity here and there it is so so dry dry and it could happen the embers could come

from anywhere and start new fires everywhere. So it's just really a very nerve wracking time. It feels like it feels like you're living in a movie. But I don't know where Vin Diesel is.

Or no, not, what did you say? No, The Rock. I was like, The Rock would stop these fires. Yes, he did. If this was one of his movies. I like The Rock, you guys. The Rock, yeah. He would have crushed it yesterday. We are definitely sharing resources on our socials. And we're going to put them in the show notes too. So you can find out how to help, how to donate to people that have been affected by this.

I know we are going through our house and donating blankets and coats and all the things that they're asking for. And we want to go help people, but there are so many restrictions about who can go in what areas. Yeah, right now. I mean, the only reason I was up in Altadena yesterday is because I was at Johnny's house. But we did get to speak to some people who had lost their whole, like everything.

And when they were just speaking to us and seeing in their eyes, they were okay. They were okay. Their family was okay. Everybody was okay. Yes, it sucks. But in that moment, you don't know. We didn't lose our house. Yeah, I have a ton of good friends that lost their houses.

From the Palisades to Malibu. It just puts everything in such perspective that it really doesn't matter. Yeah, I think once you get out and you're safe and your family is safe and you've lost everything, there's this feeling of none of it really matters. Nothing matters except this moment and that we're here together. Yeah.

Yeah. Just heartbroken for everybody, though. Yeah. We want to share our gratitude to the firefighters, the first responders, the now the National Guard coming in. The National Guard. All of the news people that have kept us around the clock. The news people who went full on, you know, hour after hour after hour after hour.

and we switched around to all of them. And they were all doing such a good job. Like Channel 9 has the Eaton Canyon. Channel 4 has the Palisades. Oh my God, the Runyon Fire just broke out. KTLA has that. Everybody's working really hard to keep helping people and keep everybody safe during this devastating time. And it's going to be a tough road for the city. And I think I know this city will all come together and

community reach out, especially in our neighborhood. And my business neighborhood wasn't affected, but I've just been talking to those people and they all want to go out into these other areas once everything settles down and just help people. I know that this will bring a lot of humans together. Yeah. And I'm grateful that we're all safe. Mm-hmm.

I'm so terribly sad for everyone. Yeah, me too. I think that we have a good system of warnings and the evacuation signals. But, you know, at the end of the day, we have to take care of each other and our neighbors and our neighborhoods and be there for one another. And I don't really know what anyone could have done with 80, 90 mile an hour winds and the wind patterns.

It was tornadoes, like many tornadoes going east, west, north, south. We are just so grateful for everything. We're grateful to have a home and be together as a family. I think that, you know, for everybody listening, it's important that you are prepared in any kind of disaster situation. Have your to-go bag, you know, packed.

with things that you might need and um because you never you always look at stuff and you always go well that's never gonna happen right you don't think it's gonna happen to you but it it does so thank you for listening i hope that this podcast helped um and we will see you soon bye-bye take care everyone

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.