Tiffani Thiessen, 52, leaned into the endless “you haven’t aged” chatter with a playful Instagram video on June 4, where she shifts from modest acceptance to dramatic modeling poses—prompting fans to debate whether she looks more like Valerie Malone from Bever
Tiffani Thiessen can handle the compliments—she just decided to turn them into a bit of entertainment.
On Thursday. June 4. the actress. 52. posted to Instagram to respond to the constant comparisons fans make between her current look and the way she appeared when she played Valerie Malone on Beverly Hills. 90210 in the ’90s. Instead of brushing it off. Thiessen leaned into the joke with a video that starts sweetly and then escalates into full-on dramatic modeling.
In the clip, Thiessen begins by modestly accepting the compliment before striking dramatic poses as her hair blows in the wind. She captioned the video, “Who me????” Fellow actress Hilarie Burton jumped into the comments with, “You are SUCH A BABE!!” Danica McKellar added, “Niiiiice!!”
Fans were equally impressed, but the debate didn’t stop at “she looks the same.” Commenters couldn’t even agree on which part of her career she most resembled right now. One person wrote, referencing her earlier work on Saved by the Bell, “90210? I thought I was looking at Kelly Kapowski.”
Thiessen starred as Valerie from 1994 to 1998. She later made a guest return to Beverly Hills, 90210 in 2000 for the show’s final season. At the time. many viewers saw Valerie as the series’ answer to Shannen Doherty’s departure as Brenda—especially because Valerie even moved into Brenda’s former bedroom.
When Doherty exited the series in 1994, viewers were stunned, having gotten used to Brenda driving much of the drama. During an Entertainment Weekly panel in 2000, Thiessen recalled that almost every interview early in her 90210 run circled back to Doherty.
“At first, I did all my interviews, and it was always, ‘How do you feel about replacing Shannen Doherty?’ It was hard. I wasn’t replacing anybody.”
Producers, though, had a clear idea of what they were trying to do. Executive producer Charles Rosin previously spoke about what made Thiessen the right fit for the role. saying. “We wanted a baaad girl. There was really an edge with Tiffani because she was so s*****. In her first episode, she [smoked] some pot. We were making a statement there,”.
But Thiessen’s personal reality, she said, didn’t match the rebellious character her casting implied. “They wanted me to roll a joint with one hand so I looked like some kind of pro. I couldn’t do it,” she recalled. “The person you see is actually somebody else’s hand rolling a joint.”
Her long list of auditions didn’t stop with Beverly Hills, 90210. Thiessen also tested for Friends—specifically for the role of Rachel. The part came after she wrapped up her run as Kelly Kapowski on Saved by the Bell.
Speaking with Nikki Glaser on SiriusXM’s “You Up” podcast in 2018, Thiessen said, “Did you know I tested for Friends, for [Rachel]?” She added that in the end, her age worked against her: “I was just a little too young. I was a little too young to the pairing of the rest of them,” she explained.
And while she’s clearly open to revisiting old favorites. Thiessen doesn’t sound like she’s bracing for another wave of reboots. She’s hoping for a Saved by the Bell reboot. and she already tried one: the Saved by the Bell reboot aired on Peacock for two seasons in 2020 and 2021. with Thiessen back as Kelly. still happily married to Zack Morris.
Even though Thiessen said she “loved the reboot,” she also made clear it didn’t last. When asked whether another attempt is on the horizon, she didn’t sound hopeful. “I don’t think so. I think they tried it,” she told People in 2025. She added, “It only lasted two seasons, sadly,” and concluded, “[But] who knows?. There are other shows that are in my sort of realm that are further along in possibly getting a reboot.”.
For now, though, Thiessen is at least leaning into the one thing her fans can’t stop pointing out: that she looks close enough to her ’90s self to start a full-on identity debate in the comments—ending with her own playful, “Who me????”
Tiffani Thiessen 90210 Beverly Hills Valerie Malone Saved by the Bell Kelly Kapowski Hilarie Burton Danica McKellar Friends Rachel SiriusXM You Up People Peacock reboot