The Neighborhood star Tichina Arnold recently dished on what it was like dating in Beverly Hills, 90210… and why the zip code didn’t quite work out for her.
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During a recent visit to Deon Cole’s Funny Knowing You podcast, the 56-year-old actress shared some nostalgic details about her dating history. While chatting with Cole, she revealed she once dated actor Brian Austin Green. Arnold said the experience wasn’t all bad… but it taught her a valuable lesson about what she wants in a relationship.
Arnold described the relationship as “nice,” but admitted it felt different from what she was used to. As time went on, she realized their paths just didn’t align. Arnold felt that Green would ultimately build his future with someone who looked like him. Once that clicked, she decided to end things.
“You’re gonna share your riches and your legacy with someone white,” the Martin alum recalled bluntly telling Green. “And so I’m getting off this train.”
That said, when the conversation turned to attraction, Arnold didn’t hold back about her preference for Black men, something she feels on a gut level. “I really love Black men,” she said, explaining that the spark, understanding, and sense of ease are just second nature to her.
Brian Austin Green Tells His Side of His Relationship with Tichina Arnold: ‘Nobody Can Know About This’
Meanwhile, Deon Cole’s podcast seems to be the place for spilling tea, as Green also recently dished on his past relationship with Tichina Arnold.
“Tichina, she was doing Martin at the time when I was doing 90210,” Green recalled. “She was singing. I was producing. So, I became friends with her and Tisha [Campbell] quick. That was an easy friendship. Tisha’s amazing also.”
“So then Tichina started coming by the house, and I was just playing beats, and I was like ‘Oh yeah, let’s work on some stuff,’ ” the 52-year-old continued. “And we were doing that. Then we ended up, because we were working together, we were around each other all the time. We just got along really well. So we ended up fooling around and kind of dating.”
“I think coming from Martin, she was very clear…she was very clear on day one that, ‘Nobody can know about this,’ ” Green told Cole on the Jan. 14 episode.
“So… I was in my early 20s. I was living in a culture that wasn’t accepting of me, but there was no way to get out of it because that was just where my brain and my heart were,” he added.
“So I was really insecure. Then I have someone who I’m really attracted to who’s telling me like, ‘you can’t tell anybody,’” he added. “I think for me it really triggered something, like, ‘I’m not really good enough for any of this. You don’t even want your friends to know that you’re hanging out with me.’”
“… My head didn’t understand,” he recalled. “And I then still felt insecure and weird out with her. I had that thing of like people are looking at me funny, or they’re wondering, ‘Why the f— am I here or who does this guy think he is?’ So I was mind-f—ing myself during that time period.”
Green added that the pair have since cleared the air and still talk from time to time. He even said they had spoken earlier that day, before he recorded the podcast with Cole.