Soleil Moon Frye Dishes on Child Stardom, Mark Wahlberg Romance

With the release of her new memoir, a lot of 80’s kids got a bit of a blast from the past seeing Soleil Moon Frye’s name again after twenty-odd years.

Last month, the child star disclosed that she’d once been “babysat” by deceased pop star Michael Jackson, and further indicated that she’d shared a jacuzzi with the notoriously reclusive king of pop. While that anecdote might be the most salacious, Frye has a lot to share about her years working on the children’s hit show Punky Brewster two decades ago.

Now a mom to two girls herself, the 35-year-old says that she’s played Punky Brewster episodes on YouTube for her daughters- who find the show to be hilarious. Frye- now an entrepreneur and “social media maven”- also dished ambiguously on what went on between she and rapper-turned-actor Mark Walhberg in the 90’s, when he was still known as “Marky Mark” to fans:

“He was more of a friend than anything. I had a mad, crazy crush on him — the biggest crush of my life! He was great and such a nice guy. Yes, it was totally crazy love. Who wasn’t crazy about him? I just saw him this morning doing a satellite media tour and I was doing mine, and I was like, ‘Oh, that Boston boy.'”

Frye also talked about her experiences as a child star and says most kids in Hollywood turn out okay:

“I think it’s really important to look at all of the kids who turned out fantastic. More kids turn out great, I think we just hear more about the negative ones. There are far more positive stories that come out of Hollywood, but they don’t sell magazines.”

However, she acknowledges, her mother ensured she had a childhood that was as normal as possible:

“That said, I think kids should always just enjoy being a kid. One of the things my mom did was force us to go to summer camp, which was the best experience of our lives. She wouldn’t let us work in the summer even if we wanted to.”

Soleil Moon Frye’s new book is called Happy Chaos.