Jason Priestley Reveals Why His ‘90210’ Success Forced Him to End Friendships

Getty

Becoming overnight sensations as breakout stars of one of the biggest 1990s TV hits took a toll on the young cast of “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

That was certainly the case with Jason Priestley, who sat down for a recent interview to detail how his journey from struggling actor to superstar celebrity cost him some friendships he thought would be lasting ones.

He ‘Cut a Lot of People’ From His Life

In a recent appearance on the “Still Here Hollywood” podcast, host Steve Kmetko asked Priestley how his sudden fame impacted his friendships, and if it led him to realize people he thought were friends actually were not.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah,” he responded, as reported by People.

“Very much so,” he continued. “It was an interesting time when the show took off because … I had a few friends that had been my friends for quite some time like, even before I moved to Los Angeles that I started to recognize behavior in them that wasn’t anything I wanted to be around anymore.”

That forced him to take action. “So, I had to actually I had to cut a lot of people out of my life. I mean — not a lot — I didn’t have that many friends anyway, but you know, a handful of guys that I thought were going to be my ride or die bros forever, right?” he shared.

“And things happen, especially when you’re young like that and, you know, people get jealous and then people, you know, start to do things to undercut, you know what I mean? But usually it’s girls who do that. I was very surprised to see this type of behavior out of my friends, but whatever. I just had to cut those guys loose,” he added.

He Suffered From ‘Youthful Hubris’

In another recent interview, Priestley also looked back at how his life was impacted by skyrocketing to fame via “90210.”

“Even in the first season of the show, I was still — because I’d been working for a long time already and I’d learned a lot going into that show — I think that I was still a victim of youthful hubris, right?” Priestley recalled during an appearance on “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum.”

“Because you think you know everything, but you just don’t know what you don’t know,” Priestley explained.

“I was a little bit guilty of that,” he confessed. “It was never anything where I was mean to anybody or, you know, having tantrums and yelling at people. It was just, I thought I knew a little bit more than I did.”

During that interview, Priestley confirmed that his “90210” fame continues to resonate today, decades after the show ended its run. Asked by host Michael Rosenbaum whether fans see him in public and call him Brandon Walsh (his character’s name), Priestley replied, “Of course they do. It’s pretty funny.”

Back in the show’s early days, Priestley recalled that he and co-star Luke Perry were often mistaken for each other. “If somebody thought I was Luke Perry, I’d be kind of a [expletive] to them, just to [expletive] with Luke,” Priestley said with a laugh. “And Luke would do the same thing when people thought he was Jason Priestley. It was really funny.”