“All in the Family” star Sally Struthers is opening up about an experience with the late Betty White that was “not nice.”
During a recent appearance on the “Let’s Talk About That! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti” podcast, the 77-year-old actress recalled her time working on the popular American sitcom, before the topic changed to Bea Arthur and then White.
The actress shared that “now that (White is) gone,” she’s going to speak up about her negative experience with the TV legend. White died in December 2021 at the age of 99, just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
“I know everybody loves her. They loved her so much,” Struthers said on the podcast. “They signed petitions to get her to guest host ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I know all that. I didn’t have such a great experience with her.”
She explained that she found White to be a “very passive-aggressive woman,” recalling the time she met with White at her home to discuss the pilot of a new game show they were working on.
While they were working, Struthers recalled White asking “her housekeeper to bring in a plate” of snacks for everyone to enjoy while determining “what was working about the game show and what wasn’t.”
“Then the plate was set in the middle, and it was cookies, I think,” Struthers said. “So, I reached for a cookie, and she said in front of everyone, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear. You don’t need a cookie.’ Totally fat-shamed me in front of the rest of the people in the room. And I thought, ‘Gosh, that’s not nice.’”
This wasn’t the first time someone commented on Struthers’ weight. Earlier in the podcast, she recalled a moment she shared with “All in the Family” creator Norman Lear after he told her she wasn’t the funniest person who auditioned to play Gloria Stivic on the sitcom.
When she asked Lear why she was cast if he didn’t think she was the best person for the role, he told her that when deciding on who would play Gloria, he and the producers thought it would be better for the longevity of the show if the character was “more like a mama’s girl or a daddy’s little girl” type.
“We thought Archie was a lot to swallow for the American audiences with his bigotry and his social slurs,” she recalled Lear telling her. “So, we thought we could soften him up if he had a soft spot in his heart for his daughter, and she could be daddy’s little girl. So, we hired you because, just like Carroll O’Connor, you have blue eyes and a fat face.”
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
Struthers won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Gloria and played the character for nine seasons on CBS, from 1971 to 1979.
While the “Gilmore Girls” actress found it difficult to get along with White, she was good friends with another “Golden Girls” star, Bea Arthur, sharing that the two of them would often run into each other while shopping in Brentwood, and Arthur would “would trash everyone we ever knew.”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
The two first met when Arthur guest starred on “All in the Family” as Maude, the cousin of Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker. Struthers laughed as she recalled Arthur being “filthier than a drunken sailor” and making everyone crack up during rehearsal, saying she “put all sorts of expletives in her lines to shock these men.”
“Bea Arthur comes in, and she’s a force of nature,” Struthers shared. Arthur’s performance as Maude impressed Lear and other network executives so much, it led them to think, “We should give her her own show.”
“And then we get ‘Maude,” Struthers said, referencing Arthur’s hit show that ran on CBS for six seasons. “So, that’s how ‘Maude’ happened, and because of ‘Maude,’ that’s how she got ‘Golden Girls.’”
