Debbie Gibson reflected on her past relationship with actor Chris Bruno — and how they managed to stay friends after their split.
The former couple started dating in the mid-1990s after they were introduced by “mutual friend” Jim Davidson, according to Gibson’s book, Eternally Electric: The Message in My Music, released on Tuesday, September 9.
“Our first hello, which was not intended to be a matchmaking setup, was at Disneyland and found us hitting it off with instant chemistry,” she wrote. “Chris was outgoing and easygoing as well as artistic, athletic and handsome.”
Bruno, now 59, “appreciated my playfulness and sense of freedom,” Gibson, now 55, wrote. “We also had a shared love of the phone and fax machine whenever our careers separated us.”
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Gibson admitted that during their relationship she “didn’t know how to simultaneously entertain a boyfriend and do my best work.”
At the time, she was appearing in national tours for both Grease and Funny Girl, along with promoting her music career.
“While I was firing on all cylinders doing my Southeast Asia press tour, Chris was trying to balance his career with focusing on the fact that his mother had stage four breast cancer,” she wrote. “We’d been flying all over the world to see each other, sometimes at short notice and with only a few hours to share. That spontaneity was exciting. But it was taking its toll, and our lives were going in different directions.”
Bruno was starring as Michael Delaney in All My Children at the time, a character he portrayed from 1995 to 1997 before moving on to other acting roles. (His stint on the soap opera lasted for the duration of their relationship.)
Despite their split, Gibson and Bruno have stayed close over the years.
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Gibson wrote that Bruno “recently” remembered her as “the most driven woman I had ever met in my life” when they were together.
“I remember telling your mom, ‘She does more before nine a.m. than the US Marines!’ I never saw anyone put so much into their career or show your level of determination,” Gibson remembered Bruno telling her. “While you’re tough when you need to be, we had a very sweet, kind, caring relationship where neither of us did anything to hurt the other. We had a lot of fun and that’s why we’re still friends today.”
Gibson wrote that she still gives Bruno a call when she needs someone to “lift me up.”
Eternally Electric is out now.
