The actress says the lines between fiction and reality became “a little blurry at times” on the set of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

Jennie Garth says Luke Perry was her ‘first true love’

The actress says the lines between fiction and reality became "a little blurry at times" on the set of "Beverly Hills, 90210."

By Derek Lawrence

Derek Lawrence

Derek Lawrence is a former associate editor at **. He left EW in 2022.

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April 8, 2026 3:48 p.m. ET

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Luke Perry and Jennie Garth in 2008. Credit:

Jean-Paul Aussenard/Wireimage

Jennie Garth wasn't just acting in her scenes with the late Luke Perry on *Beverly Hills, 90210*.

On the iconic teen drama, the duo starred as Kelly Taylor and Dylan McKay, whose on-again, off-again relationship became one of the series' primary story lines. For Garth, she couldn't help but be caught up in the onscreen romance.

"I do think he was my first true love," Garth told PEOPLE. "Now looking back, I'm like, 'You were just like every other girl in the world.' Everyone imagined him as their first true love."

Garth admitted that the lines often became "confusing" and "a little blurry at times" for her when it came to her costar.

Jennie Garth and Luke Perry on 'Beverly Hills, 90210'.

"There were a lot of intimate conversations and moments between these two characters, and I think I got caught up in it and I allowed myself to think that it was real," she shared. "I still believe that there was something real there. We had a very special relationship."

Garth added that the confusion disappeared when she and Perry both got married during the show's run, allowing them to just settle into being "great friends."

Jennie Garth on her iconic 'I choose me' 'Beverly Hills, 90210' line

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Perry died of a stroke in 2019, at the age of 52, just a few months before much of the original cast reunited for the meta reboot *BH90210*. The losses continued for the *90210* family in 2024 when Shannen Doherty died of cancer.

"It still doesn't make sense to my brain," Garth previously said of Perry and Doherty's deaths. "I live in a world where they still are a lot in my mind. So it's very, very hard to understand that they're not here physically."

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