Molly Ringwald Just Called One of Her Old Co-Stars Impossible to Work With

Molly Ringwald has spent decades as one of Hollywood’s most beloved faces, forever tied to the John Hughes classics that made her a household name in the ’80s. But not every project in her lengthy career has left her with warm memories, and this week she made that abundantly clear on live television.

The actress sat down with Andy Cohen on ‘Watch What Happens Live’ for a round of the show’s signature game, “Spill the IMDb Tea,” where celebrities rank their past projects on a scale from one to ten based purely on how the experience felt behind the scenes. What started as a lighthearted trip down memory lane quickly turned into one of the more pointed moments of the segment.

Molly Ringwald says ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ was the worst job of her career because of a toxic co-star, delivering the verdict with a bluntness that visibly stunned both Cohen and the live studio audience. When asked to clarify the scale, Ringwald confirmed that one represented the most negative rating before landing there without hesitation. “The worst is ‘one’? OK, that was it. The worst,” she said.

Ringwald was quick to clarify that her frustration wasn’t with the ensemble as a whole. She explained, “It was a hard, I mean … OK, I love the cast. I love Shailene [Woodley]. There was one person that was really difficult. And I’m not gonna say who that one person is, [but] they brought it down to [being the worst].” That distinction has left fans and entertainment outlets alike speculating about which member of the sprawling cast she might be referring to, though Ringwald has so far declined to elaborate further.

The actress played Anne Juergens, mother to Shailene Woodley’s pregnant teen protagonist Amy, appearing in the ABC Family drama for 96 of its 121 episodes across its run from 2008 to 2013. The wider ensemble cast included Daren Kagasoff, Ken Baumann, Francia Raisa, Megan Park, Greg Finley, India Eisley, Mark Derwin, and Steve Schirripa, any of whom Ringwald left open as a possibility without confirming a name.

The same round of “Spill the IMDb Tea” also gave Ringwald a chance to revisit far happier memories, particularly her work on ‘Pretty in Pink’, which she rated a perfect ten. She reflected fondly on the film’s personal significance, noting that John Hughes wrote the movie specifically for her and that she still keeps a handmade collage from the era in her bedroom.

Cohen also pressed Ringwald on other credits pulled from her IMDb page, including ‘Not Another Teen Movie’, ‘Jem and the Holograms’, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, ‘The Facts of Life’, and ‘Teaching Mrs. Tingle’, giving viewers a broader sense of how she views her decades-long career in hindsight. Elsewhere in the same conversation, Ringwald also revealed she regrets turning down Demi Moore’s role in 1990’s ‘Ghost’, a film that went on to win three Oscars and gross over $500 million worldwide, adding that she believes Moore ultimately did a great job with the part.

Ringwald’s comments arrive as ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager’ continues to hold a devoted following among fans of mid-2000s teen dramas, many of whom have spent years dissecting the show’s cast dynamics from the outside.