Jamie Lynn Sigler reflected on her first marriage to AJ Discala in new book, And So It Is… A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope.
“AJ was ten years older than me and had an air of confidence about him,” Sigler, 44, wrote in the memoir, published on Tuesday, May 5. “He was tall, with dark hair and eyes, handsome, and incredibly charismatic.”
She added, “He was one of those people who could strike up a conversation with anyone and make them feel like they’d known him forever. AJ was a natural flirt, but not in a way that felt romantic or inappropriate.”
Initially, Sigler “brushed” off anyone telling her that Discala, now 55, had feelings for her. One night “changed everything” for Sigler. When they were in the backseat of a car, she recalled Discala putting his hand on her “upper thigh.” Sigler didn’t move it.
“That moment changed everything. By the time we reached the hotel that night, we weren’t just manager and client anymore,” she wrote. “Overnight, AJ became my everything.”
They wed in 2003 and divorced two years later.
“As the relationship evolved, can I look back and see a young girl who was possibly being taken advantage of? Yes,” Sigler told Us Weekly exclusively in a recent cover story. “But I also don’t think that he really thought that that was happening either.”
She added, “I think we were both caught up in a ride, and I think our relationship was really toxic, and I think that it was really complicated, and it started off really messy.”
Keep scrolling for everything Sigler wrote about her marriage to Discala in And So It Is …
A Complicated Start to Their Relationship
As their relationship started to become romantic, Discala had to undergo emergency surgery for a burst appendix. Sigler recalled Discala making a comment comparing them to John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette while she was nursing him “back to health.”
Sigler claimed that Discala wanted them to be “followed everywhere” and have their pictures published in Page Six.
“He was in a relationship and tied to his family and then I got diagnosed with MS right in the beginning of it,” Sigler told Us when looking back at her marriage to Discala. “It was almost like all of these things I had to make worth [it] … like, this relationship had to work.”
How a Breakup Led to Their Wedding
Sigler wrote that she looked at Discala’s phone during their relationship and found messages between him and his ex. Sigler wrote that she was angry with herself, not him.
“I lost it. I snapped. Seeing red, I opened the shower door and started screaming,” she recalled. “The words streamed out of my mouth, and I can barely remember them. I told him to leave. I fired him and I broke up with him in one sentence.”
Sigler eventually forgave him and they got married.
James Gandolfini Skipped the Wedding
Sigler alluded to her Sopranos costars not supporting the nuptials. The late Gandolfini, specifically, “didn’t show up” on the day she and Discala got married.
“I can’t say for certain why. He’s not here, so I can’t ask him. But Jim had always shown up for me,” she wrote. “ The Jim I knew wouldn’t have just skipped my wedding without a word or an excuse. Part of me wonders if maybe he didn’t want it for me.”
Their Constant Fights
Sigler wrote that her relationship with Discala was the “most erratic” she’s ever been. He called her “crazy” at one point in their marriage as well. She recalled Discala referring to her as his “bitch wife” when he was drunk.
Missing Money
In the beginning of their split, Sigler admitted she “hadn’t disentangled” financially from her ex. “I didn’t even know how much money I had or what I was worth,” she wrote.
A longtime family friend who happened to be an accountant looked into their finances and discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars was missing.
“The forensic accountant broke down what he believed had been happening,” she wrote. “I would be paid a certain amount per episode for the Sopranos, and that would go into my corporation account. The next day, a portion of that money would be moved to our joint account for living expenses. But then a week or so later, a much smaller but still sizable amount of that money from our joint account would be moved to a different account that I didn’t have access to or know about.“
However, where the money went remained a mystery and Sigler didn’t try to track it down.
“To this day, I don’t know what happened with the money,” she wrote. “But I don’t care anymore. That money is a chapter I want closed forever.”
Years later, Sigler happened to be thinking about her ex and the missing money, and the very next day, she got offered The Sopranos–themed Super Bowl commercial with a paycheck that was the exact amount Discala had allegedly taken from her.
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Their Marriage Was ‘A Mistake’
Now, Sigler can look back at her relationship with a clearer perspective.
“I was only 20, trying to figure out who I was,” she wrote. “He seemed to me then a lifeline, but I know now he was a big mistake. Untangling those contradictions has taken me years.”
She reiterated this fact to Us.
“I desperately needed him at that time, so I can’t be like, ‘What were you thinking?’” she said. “I know what I needed, and he provided a lot of that for me.”
