Grant Show Says ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ Romance With Teen Jennie Garth Would ‘Now Be Illegal’

Melrose Place alum Grant Show knows that his and Jennie Garth ’s Beverly Hills, 90210 love story would “now be illegal.”

Show, 62, was the inaugural guest on the Melrose Place rewatch podcast, “Still the Place,” where he discussed his tenure on the iconic high school series.

“They cast me for Melrose Place knowing that they were going to put that character on 90210 sort of to springboard Melrose Place ,” Show said on the Monday, July 29, podcast episode. “It wasn't the spinoff [or] any of that kind of thing. It was, like, they knew this all going in. And then I did three episodes of 90210 [as] Jake.”

As Show recalled, Jake Hanson initially came onto 90210 as a handyman hired to build “a gazebo for Kelly’s family in her backyard.” Garth also appeared on the pilot of Melrose Place, where she shared a kiss with Show.

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“[It] what would now be illegal and, like, [part of the] Me Too [movement],” Show quipped. “I think we only kissed, but still, you know, not good. … How odd is it that we are more, sort of, prudish now than 30 years ago?”

While Garth, now 52, played a teenager to Jake’s 25-year-old, she was over 18 in real life. As Show put it, they were “relatively contemporaries” since they were “actually both adults.”

“That’s not that crazy in real life [but] it’s knowing that it’s high school,” Show said. “Now, you put it in those terms [of the age gap], that’s creepy.”

At the time, Show did not think about the now-weird age difference.

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“She was a grown-up, professional actress,” he said. “I didn’t really think much of it at the time we were shooting. When I watched it, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, look at that.’ … It’s different.”

Ahead of the podcast episode, the "Still the Place" cohosts exclusively told Us Weekly that the Jake-Kelly love story was "painful" to rewatch.

"I was watching it thinking, well surely they’re gonna almost kiss then not quite. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re kissing, they’re kissing!’” Courtney Thorne-Smith told Us earlier this month. “It just didn’t age well. Grant is such a straightforward, ethical guy that he would never do that today. But at the time it was romantic. We forget how badly those things age.”

Daphne Zuniga and Laura Leighton concurred, noting the story line feels "different" in today's world.

Overall, Show liked Melrose Place in its first season, referring to the pilot as “kind of corny and a little hokey in places.”

“For the most part, I thought it was a really solid episode,” he added, noting that later seasons of the show became vastly “different.”

Garth did not recur on Melrose Place after the May-December romance fizzled out. Her character primarily was involved in a 90210 love triangle with Brandon Walsh ( Jason Priestley ) and Dylan McKay ( Luke Perry ). While Kelly was often torn between her two classmates, it was “a little weird” for Garth to film love scenes with Priestley, now 54.

“It was a little weird because Jason is like a brother to me, but when we crawled into the skin of the characters, it really did make sense,” Garth exclusively told Us in March. “I love watching Kelly and Brandon together. What they had was really nice and I’m a fan of it.”

Kelly and Brandon nearly got married onscreen before calling off the nuptials at the alter. By the series finale, Kelly chose Dylan. In the 2008 revival on The CW, it is revealed that Kelly and Dylan are no longer together but share a son.