Jenny Mollen has opened up after her split from Jason Biggs, writing in a new Substack essay titled “DON’T TELL ME WHAT IT IS” about disappointment, loneliness, and a lifetime of rushing past moments she wanted to enjoy.
Jenny Mollen’s split from Jason Biggs didn’t just land in headlines earlier this month—it followed her into the quiet work of reflection.
In a new Substack article titled “DON’T TELL ME WHAT IT IS. ” out on Monday. the Cattle Call star broke her silence and looked back over her life with sharp honesty. The relationship is over after 18 years of marriage. but what she’s really unpacking goes deeper than dates and decisions: the way she has spent years chasing what comes next. then realizing too late what she missed.
She starts with a memory from when she was six—an afternoon birthday party after school where her mother hung a piñata from her condo balcony. Mollen wrote that they “all took turns beating it until it exploded across the driveway. ” with Chiclets. Mars Bars. and tootsie rolls flying everywhere while a clown performed. She recalled sitting in the grass next to the driveway. “ripping through a pile of presents as the festivities raged around me.”.
But that night, she said, stuck with her for reasons that still sting. “Later that night, I was overcome with this intense sense of disappointment and loneliness,” she wrote. Not because she didn’t get what she wanted. she explained. but because “the best part of a gift is often wondering what’s inside.” She said she rushed through the whole thing to get answers and “missing my own party.”.
Mollen went on to connect the memory to a lesson she says she’s had to relearn again and again: “I think about this birthday a lot, because it taught me a lesson I’ve continuously had to relearn over and over throughout my life.”
When she turns to motherhood, the pattern doesn’t disappear—it changes shape. She reflected on spending much of her young life rushing to her next destination. including after she and Biggs had their children. Sid. 12. and Lazlo. 8. “Everywhere I’ve ever been has felt a little temporary. like a waiting room I’m trapped in before an operation. ” she wrote. She described how she believed she wouldn’t survive the years when her children weren’t sleeping through the night. and how she imagined weekends would be spent trapped inside the “hellscape of the Tribeca red park playground.”.
Then she lands on the part that sounds hardest: “But those moments are behind me, and what’s tragic is that while I was in them, struggling to get out, my life was happening anyway.” She said her kids were growing up while she was “standing in memories that I can now only access through pictures.”
In the essay, the longing for validation shows up too—less as a single event and more as a habit. “When you’re young and ambitious. or maybe just middle-aged with ADHD. it feels impossible to appreciate anything while you’re in it. ” she wrote. She said the highest highs of her life hit “like pennies disappearing into a bottomless well. ” and that she would wait for something to land—then move on before it ever did. “Hoping that the next thing would finally be the one that cured me- the one that made me feel worthy and validated in a way that has always evaded me.”.
The thread running through her memories is plain when set side by side: a sixth birthday full of noise and candy becomes a lesson about rushing, and the same impulse becomes a way to miss time with her kids while they’re right in front of her.
By the end of the piece, Mollen gives followers something that feels like both a release and a plan. “I leave for Italy on Wednesday. ” she wrote. describing the trip as sounding “sooo Eat. Pray. Love” given the current state of her life. She immediately clarified that she isn’t traveling to “find myself or sleep with some beautiful Italian stranger. ” adding that she already has “two half-Italians at home.”.
Instead. she said she’s going because a friend invited her to her birthday party—“It’s also my birthday as well.” She doesn’t expect the original details from childhood to repeat. but she still can’t help herself: “It’s unlikely I’ll see clowns. or Coors Light. or my mom getting buzzed in a corner. but if I come across a piñata. I absolutely intend on beating the s**t out of it.”.
After the split from Jason Biggs—announced earlier this month—the essay reads like her attempt to stop answering disappointment with speed. She may not be done relearning the lesson, but she’s at least finally naming it.
Jenny Mollen Jason Biggs Substack DON’T TELL ME WHAT IT IS split Cattle Call Sid Lazlo Tribeca red park playground Italy trip piñata