Mario Lopez talks about his abortion loss as a teen in new memoir

Before he ever joined the cast of Saved by the Bell, actor Mario Lopez had fathered a child who was aborted. The young star became sexually active at the age of 12, recalling that sex was his “drug of choice” as a teen. This addiction eventually led to one of his partners becoming pregnant when he was 15.

Mario says in his memoir, Just Between Us, that he planned to care for the mother and child, but it did not work out that way in the end. LifeNews reports:

He was 15 at the time and planned on getting a full-time job to support her and his baby but she eventually had an abortion.

Lopez is now 40, and has living children in addition to the child who died in abortion. Mario wrote his memoir as a way to reflect over his life so far as he turned 40:

I feel like you need to be completely honest, and unfiltered and put it all out there, and I did. Everything from my romantic life, my love life to my professional life, where I come from, being a child of immigrants, being born and raised in Chula Vista.

He says that growing up in the “hood” prompted him to experiment with sex too early. Everyone, he said, grows up fast there.

One source reports that Mario’s abortion “saved him” from becoming a teen dad, and erroneously states that he “almost produced a child.” Mario did produce a child — that child was simply not given the opportunity to live long.