Jamie-Lynn Sigler fantasised about her own death during her "toxic and complicated" first marriage.

The 44-year-old star was just 22 years old when she tied the knot with A.J. Discala, her former money manager who is 10 years her senior, and she has reflected on their "disastrous" three-year union, which left her desperate for help and support.

Asked if it was hard to revisit her fantasies about death in her new memoir, And So It Is, she told Us Weekly magazine: "I hadn't relived that moment until I wrote it. It wasn't even really about suicide. It was a cry for help. I needed someone to know how terrified and overwhelmed I was."

The Sopranos star - who has been married to Cutter Dykstra, the father of sons Beau, 12, and eight-year-old Jack, for a decade - felt like a "failure" during her marriage to A.J. and didn't think she'd have "survived" if they had stayed together.

She said: "A marriage at 20 is still a marriage. I needed a lot of proof to leave. When I went through his phone, I knew something shady was going on. All women feel that way.

"I wanted to share that not to bash him, but for other women. I felt like such a failure all the time, but I understood I was not going to survive much longer if I stayed in that marriage. I think he knew that, too."

But Jamie-Lynn "desperately needed" A.J. at the time and even though she now feels he took advantage of her, she thinks they both got "caught up in a ride".

She said: "I desperately needed him at that time, so I can't be like, 'What were you thinking?'

"I know what I needed, and he provided a lot of that for me. Can I look back and see a young girl who was possibly being taken advantage of? Yes, but I also don't think that he really thought that was happening. I think we were both caught up in a ride, and I think our relationship was really toxic and complicated.

The MesSy podcaster knew just two weeks after meeting Cutter he was the right guy for her, even though she didn't expect such a connection at first.

She said: "I wanted somebody I could feel safe with and who excited me and who was fun. I don't think I wrote down "athlete," but I was dating a lot of athletes at the time.

"When I met Cutter, I didn't think this was the guy -- he was a 22-year-old minor league baseball player. But by two weeks in, [I knew it wasn't a fling]. I was going to do whatever I needed to do to make it work with him."