The “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum met her while working on the popular teen drama.

Brian Austin Green says *Martin *star Tichina Arnold didn’t want anyone to know they were dating

The "Beverly Hills, 90210" alum met her while working on the popular teen drama.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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on January 14, 2026 9:37 p.m. ET

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Brian Austin Green and Tichina Arnold both pictured in 1995. Credit:

Ron Davis/Getty; Vinnie Zuffante/Getty

Brian Austin Green says *Martin *actress Tichina Arnold wanted to keep their romance quiet. Very quiet.

The *Beverly Hills, 90210* actor, who is white, said on Wednesday's edition of the *Funny Knowing You* podcast that Arnold, who is Black, was one of the women he had dated while making his '90s hit for Fox. They became friends while she was costarring on Martin Lawrence's comedy series for the same network.

"Hip-hop was my world," said Green, who played DJ and rapper David Silver. "I was doing hip-hop clubs. I was going to all the places where hip-hop was existing. So, when you're dating someone, you usually date the people that you're around. So, of course, I was dating majority Black women at the time, because we had common interests."

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But the actor noted that it wasn't "a conscious choice of 'I want to date someone culturally who's different.' That never even crossed my mind because we shared the same culture."

Host Deon Cole joked that Green was "always the Blackest person on *90210*," which made him laugh.

Green, who also dated *90210* costars Tori Spelling and Tiffani Thiessen, among others, played Silver for all 10 seasons of the teen drama, which aired from 1990 to 2000.

Arnold, meanwhile, portrayed Pamela James on all five seasons of *Martin*, which aired from 1992 to 1997.

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Green said that he and Arnold, who are both musicians too, quickly became friends, even collaborating on tunes.

"Because we were working together and we were around each other all the time, we just got along really well," Green said. "So we ended up fooling around and kind of dating."

Green continued, "She was very clear on Day 1 [that] nobody can know about this. And 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. So, I was really insecure. And then I have someone who I'm attracted to who's telling me like, 'Oh, you can't tell anybody.'"

For Green, it was a trigger that told him he wasn't enough, he said.

When Arnold eventually came to a different way of thinking, and she was "cool with it," Green was too far gone the other way.

"I think somewhere in my mind," Green said, "I had that subconscious switch of like, 'Oh, this isn't a real relationship. This is just a thing that we're doing. And now maybe her view of it has changed a little bit, but it didn't even start in a healthy way.'"

Brian Austin Green has opened up about his love for Tichina Arnold.

River Callaway/Variety via Getty

** has reached out to a representative for Arnold.

Green explained that he and Arnold have long since cleared the air. The actor said that he loves the actress and had even spoken to her the day they filmed his interview.

Meanwhile, Arnold herself went on the same podcast just last month — Green said he'd watched — during which she had no qualms speaking about her affection for him.

She noted that the white guy she dated — whom she later identified as Green — was a "really, really nice guy."

"I told him, I said, 'The reason why we've come to the end of our road, because I know I see you dating all these Black women now, you're dating me and you're not going to end up with a Black woman,'" Arnold said. "'You're going to share your riches and your legacy with someone white. And so I'm getting off this train.'"

She also recognized that "it wasn't going anywhere."

"But it was a great experience," Arnold said. "Because he was a good human being. He was a good human being. And I I think in life I had to experience that, so I know what the other side is."

Listen to Green's full podcast interview above.

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