The actress opens up about childhood mischief, early internet-era dangers, and nostalgic memories she now shares with her kids.
Christina Ricci took a walk down memory lane during a candid and humorous appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, revealing a bizarre and unsettling chapter from her preteen years that perfectly captures the chaotic charm—and cautionary tales—of growing up in the ’90s.
The Addams Family star, who famously portrayed Wednesday Addams in the 1991 film, shared that at the age of 11, she and a group of girlfriends frequently prank-called 1-800-Mattress—a company well-known at the time for its catchy slogan, “Leave off the last S for savings.”
“We prank-called them so much,” Ricci recalled with a laugh, “we ended up having a regular guy that we would talk to named Jared.” The prank calls became so frequent, they essentially formed a strange, recurring connection with this one customer service rep.
But things took a disturbing turn.
“One of these idiot girls gave Jared her address,” Ricci admitted, before revealing that the man responded by mailing them a photo of his penis. “It was a printed-out photo developed at a CVS Photoshop or something,” she added, emphasizing the disturbing effort it must’ve taken in a pre-digital age to send such an image.
Kimmel, stunned, joked that the man may have invented the first “dick pic,” to which Ricci quipped, “It certainly was the first dick pic I saw.”
The young girls didn’t report the incident to parents or police. Instead, they did what many kids might do when their fun turns frightening—they simply stopped calling. “That was the end of 1-800-Mattress,” Ricci concluded dryly.
The interview, while filled with laughs, also sheds light on the darker, unfiltered realities of a less tech-savvy but equally risky era. Ricci noted that today, she often shares stories like these with her 10-year-old son Freddie, whom she shares with ex-husband James Heerdegen.
“We saw a pay phone once and he was like, ‘Oh my God, mom, are those the phones you used to have when you were little?’” Ricci said. She also recounted how he once encountered a rotary phone and couldn’t figure it out, declaring that “it takes a long time” to use.
Freddie, she added, is also “very obsessed” with hearing about her childhood sleepovers, especially the ritual of renting movies from Blockbuster and staying up late watching Saturday Night Live—something Ricci says her son finds “so fun.”
Now also mom to 3-year-old Cleo with husband Mark Hampton, Ricci finds herself straddling two vastly different worlds: the nostalgic grit of her ’90s upbringing and the hyper-connected, cautious era her kids are growing up in today.
In the end, her story serves as both a humorous flashback and a subtle reminder of how the most innocent mischief can spiral into something serious—especially before parents, technology, and society caught up with the risks.
