Anna Faris Breaks Silence: Chuck Lorre Memoir Passage 'Hurts'

Anna Faris says "of course it hurts" — her first public response to "Mom" creator Chuck Lorre, who wrote in his new memoir that his early doubts about hiring her turned out to be correct.

"Yikes," Faris wrote in an Instagram statement posted Thursday. "Yes, I read a few things. I really didn't see that coming. Of course it hurts. Chuck gave me a job I loved, and for seven years I never took a day of it for granted. I'm proud of what we made together, and nothing changes how grateful I am for those people and those years."

What did Chuck Lorre actually write?

In "Sitcom," his memoir about his career in television, Lorre admits he hesitated before casting Faris in "Mom," the CBS comedy that ran eight seasons from 2013 to 2021. His caution, he explains, came from his bruising history with Charlie Sheen on "Two and a Half Men."

"I wasn't sure Anna would be appropriate for this kind of material," Lorre wrote. "Then I thought about how badly I'd bungled my working relationship with Charlie Sheen." He added: "Someone's personal life is none of my business. The mom in 'Mom' would be, and should be, Anna Faris."

So he hired her. The pairing worked commercially and creatively — Faris played Christy, a recovering alcoholic rebuilding her life after her mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), also in recovery, moved in with her.

The friction came later. Faris left the show in 2020, with production citing her desire to "pursue new opportunities." Lorre wasn't buying it. "As the years went by, it became apparent that my initial reluctance to hire Anna was, in fact, correct," he wrote. "After six years, she left the show for mysterious reasons that were not mysterious to anyone on the show."

That's the sentence that landed hardest. It frames a seven-season collaboration — one that earned Janney two Emmys' worth of critical standing for the series — as a hire the boss regretted.

What does Faris's answer reveal?

Her statement does two things at once. It takes the hit honestly, then reframes the story around recovery rather than workplace grievance.

Faris revealed she has been sober for a year and a half. "I was on a show about recovery, and then I lived it," she wrote.

She closed on a note aimed past the industry feud entirely: "Now I'm healthy, I'm working, and I'm happier than I've been in a long time. If anyone reading this is where I was, I hope that's useful. It gets better. I'm proof."

Why the exchange matters

There's a pointed irony here, and Faris clearly knows it. "Mom" built its premise on honesty about addiction; its star was privately living that arc while making the show. Lorre's memoir, by contrast, reads her exit as a professional failing on her part — "mysterious reasons" with a knowing wink to insiders.

What does this change for Faris? Probably little, professionally. She frames herself as healthy and working. But the exchange is a rare public case of a showrunner putting a negative performance verdict on a lead actor in print, by name, while the actor answers back in real time. Lorre has not responded to Faris's statement, and how the memoir's portrait settles — his version of "correct," or her version of gratitude and recovery — will likely shape how the "Mom" years are remembered.