Betty White was called a 'f**king c**t' by Golden Girls co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan
'The Golden Girls' casting director Joel Thurm has revealed that actress Betty White's co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan used to call her names behind her back. He recalled White's tumultuous relationship with her co-actors and disclosed that Arthur and McClanahan "did not like her" at all.
"Literally Bea Arthur, who I cast in something else later on, just said, 'Oh, she's a f***ing c***,' using that word," Thurm said on The Originals podcast, hosted by entertainment journalist Andrew Goldman. Shocked by this, Goldman asked, "Bea Arthur called Betty White a C-word?" Thurm replied, "Yeah, she called her the C-word. I mean, I heard that with my own ears. And by the way, so did Rue McClanahan. Rue McClanahan said it to me in Joe Allen's [restaurant]; Bea Arthur [when she was] on the set of Beggars And Choosers."
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He gave an example, recalling how fellow castmate Estelle Getty used to have issues memorizing her lines. "And she [Getty] would write the lines on her hand, and Betty White would make fun of her in front of the live audience. That may seem like a minor transgression, but it really does get to you... I have no idea how Estelle Getty felt, but I know the other two did not like [White] at all," explained Thurm.
In an interview with The Village Voice, White had acknowledged the friction and differences between herself and Arthur. She divulged, "Bea had a reserve. She was not that fond of me. She found me a pain in the neck sometimes. It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious!"
Arthur died at her Brentwood home of lung cancer at the age of 86 on April 25, 2009. McClanahan died aged 76 on June 23, 2010 after suffering a brain hemorrhage. White died of natural causes on December 31, 2021, just three weeks ahead of her 100th birthday, reports Daily Mail.
'The Golden Girls' is a popular American sitcom spanning seven seasons that ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992. Starring White, Arthur, McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, the show is about four elderly women who share a home in Miami, Florida. The criticaly acclaimed show won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice. The series also won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, and all four starring actors received an Emmy Award, making it one of only four sitcoms in the award's history to have achieved this.