An Update From Jennie

Published Jan 11, 2025, 4:10 AM

Jennie and her husband Dave are safe from the southern California wildfires and you'll never believe whose house they evacuated to! Plus a status update on the "I Choose Me" live event. 
We thank our firefighters, first responders, and volunteers for all they are doing to keep people safe during this devastating time. Our hearts go out to all who have been impacted by these fires. Los Angeles, we love you. 
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You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garland. Hy, 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 also on the I Choose Me Live event. So I'm gonna have my husband join me now because I don't know, I just need them buy me right now. Hey baby, Hi.

Yeah, it's been a it's been a weird week, a weird start to twenty five, right, let's say the least.

I thought this was going to be a good year.

Yeah, we are 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 in Virginia Beach, Virginia and we went through some hurricanes, but you know, I was you sleep through them or you know nothing? 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 hopefully. Why don't we start like, how did this whole thing come into our life? Like on our radar? I don't even remember what was the how it started?

Well, so, 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, and we were getting prepared for all the strong wind warnings that we.

Were just 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 in 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 Eating 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.

It 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 Palisads. We're not close to the Palistads, so we're fine. And then all of a sudden, and all of.

A sudden, Eating Kenyon 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 or 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 right.

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 could protect them, and we hadn't been like that since COVID.

When did we realize everything is such a blur, like a 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, drama.

I feel numb. Everybody I have talked to you says they just feel numb. And I can so relate because you're so shocked, and then you just feel immobilized, and like with fear.

And you want to help, and how can I help? And 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 given us updates. So basically 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. 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 the sudden the wind will swirl or switch and the wind is just insane.

And on Tuesday night we had wind guts up to eighty to ninety miles an hour.

So yeah, I felt like our house was going to fly away, crumble, break every wall.

I thought all of our windows were going to explode.

Absolutely, So 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.

Well, you I think you were the first one to start packing bags. Like I just was just like I couldn't function. I was so freaked out.

Well, yeah, I had some people calling me and then talking to you know, Johnny, and then you got all our friend Kevin, and by that time it was you know, a thirty nine, So we had grad we could gradually start to prepare. 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 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.

By 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 fourteen. 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, and I was like ripping pictures off the walls. Our walls are all still bare.

Hours later when we had 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 point 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, We are getting out of here. It's a little it's very close. In my then we had had a full on 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, and yeah.

Do you feel like I feel kind of like guilty, a little bit of survivor guilt like that my house, 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?

Like I feel terrible for you know, 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 that has just hit everybody in the city. And like I said, it's it's still not done. It's a it's slow and luckily right now this is Friday and we don't have wind 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 when that one in Hollywood on the Hollywood Hills came up, that was terrifying because that is like Palisades, another very very like densely populated area.

Because we had evacuated in the valley to Peters and so.

Now we once we were yeah, we were evacuated Peters, and we thought, okay.

We're the next morning, and then.

And then and then it 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 eleven, 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. That's when we came over here around eleven thirty twelve.

Oh, that's when I read that's.

When you ripped off everything on the walls. And then we got pictures in big chests and we loaded up the truck and basically took I.

Mean what I want. 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 shocked, 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 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.

I just think that that is another It's it's so surreal what's happening, and you just.

In the in the panic moment, you know, you're.

In a house where you look outside and it's a ominous glow of like fire and smoke, and it feels like the fire's like right next to you.

Yeah, and that's when I think I just start shaking like uncontrollably. I could barely rip things off the walls. My hands were trembling like so much, and I and it was full blown sweating and panicking.

Also, it's just so odd that, you know, when we're loading up the car, it's so quiet outside and.

It's just still, and it's just eerie, ash falling, so eery, soery. 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 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. I was like, I don't My 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 inches items as well.

What like what was interesting, like.

Your vintage Eagles sweatshirts and hats.

Yeah, well, like you throw oranges in the back of the truck. I 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.

And I took all our family pictures and memories, and you took your your sweatshirts in.

Your head some vintage Eagle stuff that I couldn't get back. Well, I helped you with the pictures.

You did you can. 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, schlipping everything, loading heavy things into the back of the truck, well, organizing us and trying to keep us all calm.

Yeah. Well, 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 I did you hear us? Hear that sound, the fire sound, And there's an app that everybody's been on and that like sound is seared like a notification warning and where another fire is popped up or what's going on here? But in true reflection of grabbing things, yeah, just when you when you're in that and you're trying to save what you need to save, right, I guess there was really nothing we really needed to save because we were already all saved. The girls were fine. Yeah, you know, we were just getting convenient things.

Oh yeah, you know, 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 an in canyon and even it when.

We were at Peter's house and we got that evacuation warning for running his house. Yeah, when the running canyon came up, that was terrifying, Like.

Well, everybody were right because it was close and you were close to that because.

We were also like, where are we going to go? Now? It's 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 like a.

We have 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 it was enjoyable in it 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.

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 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 Is Beyonce was there, and Jack there almost their almost two year old son, and all of our dogs. So we all just sort of they we all just sort of really hunkered down and watched the news together and it was together.

It was an enjoyable experience.

I told, uh, I don't know 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 every but he was safe. It was like, oh, 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. I 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 wasn't 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 then I was.

Like, we stayed in the guest house was private, it's like a back house. 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 where we smelled like a campfire. But they're all right.

So going back to the banana bat first 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 I think he got eaten. I've said who ate it all? And he was like, I don't know, 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 back like wad, 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.

That's 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's making a sandwich at eleven o'clock at night.

Yeah. I think we were all stressed eating.

Everybody was probably doing things that.

They I have no plan to I have no plan to stop stress either.

I didn't be in there because I was trying to go steal chocolate covered peanut butter bruds.

I was not only stress eating. I was stressed 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.

Impossible, But we all kind of managed to keep our cool until we never got an evacuation like 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 always hard, and our whole team, everybody at iHeart, all my family members have been working 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 sort of.

I think everybody in the city is in a what now place?

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 Angelino's 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 that they had it at all locked up, but the smoke blue 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 for you know, so who knows.

Not to mention his entire neighborhood has burned down.

In his entire neighborhood, even walking through it yesterday and seeing the destruction of you know, the 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 eighty to ninety mile an hour wind.

So they didn't have water, right.

They 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 it's just scary. There's nothing, there's nothing that 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 know, you're working so hard on the event coming up and so wrapped up into that, and ye have to cancel it because that is small pales in comparison.

Yeah, definitely, it was not the time to quite yet to come together, 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 we'll offer us all like some solace and some solidarity and that feeling of of being being neighbors, being friendly, kind and having support. So we're definitely going to be rescheduling it. 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 something. I mean, even now we have Winds coming back next week. It's Friday and Tuesday, and now we have to prepare for something else.

Mm hmm. It's crazy, though. What is 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. 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 on the 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 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 that's what everyone was afraid of. Looters and people taking av.

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 you know, yeah, it's it's just another added thing to be worried about. But and then you think to yourself, why am I worrying about that ship because the house is going to burn down anyway, I might see my house for the last time.

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

And the neighborhood is a hot mess though, Like there's a lot of trees around where we live. There's so many down trees and broken limbs.

That's what you know, a lot of people are missing. Is the wind damage that this storm caused in another itself is like is one situation another situation. Yeah, that's one of the worst wind events I've ever seen that I've been here in twenty three years.

What wild, wild wind scary winds.

Yeah, I mean, my 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 you 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, like you're just waiting for I mean, and you can't come.

It's everybody has 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, because of the unhealthy air, because now the winds have completely stopped and we're in just a stagnant face.

But if they're coming back, but they're coming back, 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, 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 not.

The Rock I was like, the Rock would stop these fires. This was this was one of his movies.

I like the Rock guy, 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 the areas and yeah right now.

I mean the only reason I was up in down toa Dina yesterday is because I was at you know, 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 seen in their eyes, they were okay, that they were okay, their family was okay, everybody was okay. Yes, it sucks, but in that moment, you don't know, like I don't. We didn't lose our house.

Might 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.

Yeah. I think once you get out and you're safe and your family is safe and you've lost everything, there's this like feeling of none of it really matters, Nothing matters except this moment and that we're here together. Yeah, and there's heartbroken for everybody though. Yeah, we want to share our gratitude the firefighters, the first responders, the now the National Guard coming in, the National Guards, all of the news people.

That have kept us, the news people who were around the plan, you know, hour after hour after hour after hour, and themselves in such danger and they were all doing such a good job. Like Channel nine has the eaton Canyon, Channel four has the Palisades. Oh my god, the running fire just broke out. Katla has that.

So everybody's working really hard to keep helping people and keep everybody safe during this devastating time.

And it's it's gonna be a it's gonna be a tough road for the city. And I think, I I know this city will all come together and community reach out, especially in our neighborhood and mine 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. 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 in our neighborhoods and be there for one another, and don't I don't really know what anyone could have done with eighty ninety mile an hour winds and the wind patterns. It was tornadoes, like many tornadoes going east west, north south.

So 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 disastrous situation, have your to go back, you know, packed with things that you might need, and.

Because you never you always look at stuff and you always go well that's not gonna happen, right.

You don't think it's going to happen to you, but it does. So thank you for listening. I hope that this podcast helped and we will see you soon.

Bye bye, take care of everyone.

I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

Jennie Garth became synonymous with Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills 90210 when she uttered these three 
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