Pressly called her former co-stars an “incredible cast of women” as Faris responded to Lorre’s critical memoir comments about her casting and departure.
Jaime Pressly is reflecting warmly on her years on Mom as former co-star Anna Faris responds to sharp comments from series co-creator Chuck Lorre. Pressly described the CBS sitcom’s ensemble as an “incredible cast of women” and said she valued being able to work with female colleagues she considered friends.
Pressly joined Mom during its second season, which premiered in 2014. She played Jill Kendall, a wealthy woman dealing with alcoholism who became part of the recovery group surrounding Faris’ character, Christy Plunkett. Pressly began in a recurring role and became a series regular in Season 3.
“I was there for seven years, but there [were] eight seasons,” Pressly told E! News in an interview published Oct. 17. She said those years included work with an “incredible crew” and women who were “just as beautifully flawed as our characters on the show were.”
Pressly also said she enjoyed going to work with “girlfriends every day.” She described working with women in a similar age range as refreshing, offering a positive account of the relationships she formed during the comedy’s run.
Her remarks arrived days after Lorre’s memoir, Sitcom, renewed attention on Faris’ departure from Mom in 2020. Lorre wrote that he had initially been reluctant to cast Faris as Christy, a single mother navigating sobriety and a difficult relationship with her own mother, Bonnie, played by Allison Janney.
Lorre wrote that he initially questioned whether Faris was right for the material. He said he reconsidered after reflecting on his troubled working relationship with Charlie Sheen during Two and a Half Men, deciding that an actor’s personal life was not his business when making the casting decision.
Faris ultimately starred in Mom for seven seasons, beginning with the show’s 2013 premiere. She and Janney anchored the series as mother and daughter while the story gradually expanded to focus on a larger group of women supporting one another through addiction recovery and other personal struggles.
In Sitcom, however, Lorre wrote that his early hesitation about hiring Faris later appeared justified to him. He pointed to her departure before the eighth and final season and described her reasons for leaving as “mysterious,” while suggesting people working on the show understood more about the situation.
Faris responded publicly on Instagram on Oct. 15. She said she had read some of Lorre’s comments, had not expected them and acknowledged that they hurt.
At the same time, Faris expressed gratitude for the opportunity Lorre gave her. She wrote that she loved the job, remained proud of what the cast and crew created, and was thankful for the people she worked with during her seven years on the series.
Faris also disclosed that she had been sober for a year and a half. She connected that part of her life to the subject matter of Mom, writing that she had worked on a show about recovery and later experienced recovery herself. She said she is now healthy, working and happier.
Her departure from Mom was announced in September 2020 before production on Season 8. At the time, Faris said her seven years on the series had been among the most fulfilling and rewarding of her career and thanked Lorre, the writers and her castmates. She said she was leaving to pursue new opportunities.
Mom continued for one more season without Faris and ended in 2021. Janney remained at the center of the ensemble with Pressly, Mimi Kennedy, Beth Hall, Kristen Johnston and William Fichtner among the returning cast members.
Pressly’s new comments do not directly address Lorre’s criticism or explain Faris’ exit. Instead, they offer a different perspective on the working environment by emphasizing the friendships, imperfections and shared experiences of the women who spent years making the series together.
That distinction matters because the dispute centers on differing memories of the same production. Lorre’s memoir presents his own account of his concerns about Faris, while Faris has said she was surprised and hurt by how he described their working relationship.
Pressly, meanwhile, has focused on what she remembers positively. Her remarks add another voice from the long-running sitcom without claiming to resolve why Faris left or what happened privately before her departure.
The renewed attention comes more than five years after Mom aired its final episode. The series ran for eight seasons on CBS and became known for combining traditional sitcom humor with stories about addiction, relapse, recovery, friendship and family.
IMAGE: Actress Jaime Pressly at the Slim-Fast Fashion Show. Photo: lukeford.net / Wikimedia, taken 2008-01-08, CC BY-SA 2.5