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- 16 on-screen best friends who reportedly hated each other in real life
16 on-screen best friends who reportedly hated each other in real life
Gabbi Shaw
- On-screen chemistry between fictional best friends doesn't always translate to friendship off-screen.
- For every Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox success story, there's a heated feud between actors who have to pretend they like each other.
- Rose McGowan recently tweeted that Alyssa Milano made the set of "Charmed" a "toxic AF" work environment.
Acting is a unique profession in which you can find yourself sequestered with your co-workers for 15 hours a day, seven days a week. So it makes sense that personalities clash and drama ensues.
But it's always sad to find out that your BFF goals couldn't actually stand being in a room together, like Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi, who played dynamic duo Alicia and Kalinda on "The Good Wife." And what hasn't been said about the legendary falling out of Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall on "Sex and the City"?
Here are 16 on-screen besties who reportedly couldn't stand each other off-screen.
Some believe that a falling out between "Will & Grace" stars Debra Messing and Megan Mullally was to blame for the rebooted sitcom ending after its 11th season.
The Daily Mail reported that the actresses — who played Grace Adler and Karen Walker on the show — unfollowed each another on Instagram. This is said to come after a cryptic, now-deleted story posted to Instagram by Mullally in which she hints at feeling great after losing her "attachment to somebody."
Although she did not name Messing, Mullally also hinted at a workplace feud on her podcast in January. "I've been bullied — I'm 60 and I'm being bullied right now, so you know it's a very insidious and dangerous thing and I never want to lose that happy and innocent part of myself but it's almost like you have to kill that," she said. She specified that this was happening in a "work situation."
NBC Chairman Paul Telegdy told TVLine that reports of Messing and Mullally's feud "were greatly and falsely exaggerated."
Nina Dobrev shocked fans of "The Vampire Diaries" when she admitted she and co-star Paul Wesley "despised each other" at the beginning of the show.
Thankfully, the two are confirmed besties now, but according to Dobrev the on-screen lovers-turned-friends couldn't stand each other for the first five months of filming their show.
"I respected Paul Wesley, I didn't like Paul Wesley," Dobrev revealed on the "Directionally Challenged" podcast in June 2019. Cue the sounds of "Stelena" fans' hearts breaking all over the world.
"But, of everyone [from the 'Vampire Diaries' cast], I think I probably see him the most and hang out with him the most … We are probably the closest. We hang out a lot. We're really good friends. And I love his wife. It's so funny how time changes everything because I never thought that he would be one of my best friends," she continued.
Their characters had a similar up and down dynamic — the two dated for three and a half seasons of the show before breaking up for good in season four. Stefan (Wesley) and Elena (Dobrev) maintained a strong friendship for the rest of the show.
Three of the four stars of "Desperate Housewives" got along great — but they all reportedly couldn't stand Teri Hatcher.
The feud between the ladies of Wisteria Lane is well-publicized. It appears to have stemmed from Teri Hatcher, who played Susan, considering herself the star of the show, though all four of the actresses were technically leads.
While Nicolette Sheridan (who played Edie before getting killed off in season five) called Hatcher "the meanest woman in the world," the drama came to a head when the cast appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair.
According to Today, an ABC rep demanded that Hatcher wouldn't be the first to get to pick her wardrobe, and wouldn't be shot in the center of the cover photo, in order to appease the rest of the group.
When Hatcher finagled her way into wardrobe first anyhow, Marcia Cross allegedly stormed off set, while Eva Longoria shot off angry texts to their rep.
The drama was seemingly confirmed by a telling omission on the wrap gifts the stars gave to the crew — Hatcher's name was completely left off the card.
And if you thought this was all in the past, you're wrong. In 2018, six years after the show ended, Longoria appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" claiming that the crew was all still "very good friends," before correcting herself with, "99% of us are."
The feud between "Sex and the City" co-stars Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker reached a fever pitch in 2018.
Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker have had a long-simmering feud that recently exploded when Cattrall was blamed for "Sex and the City 3" not happening. The actress, who played Samantha Jones on the hit HBO comedy, tweeted that "The only 'DEMAND' I ever made was that I didn't want to do a 3rd film."
Things got even more heated when Parker publicly expressed her condolences when Cattrall's brother passed away. Cattrall blasted her former co-star on Instagram, ending her caption with "Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven't already) You are not my family. You are not my friend," adding, "I'm writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your 'nice girl' persona."
Parker has yet to respond to Cattrall's comments, though she stands by the fact that in her eyes, there's no feud.
"Gossip Girl" stars Leighton Meester and Blake Lively were no Serena and Blair in real life.
Serena and Blair definitely weathered their fair share of storms throughout "Gossip Girl's" six seasons, including multiple shared boyfriends, schemes, and a literal cake fight, but they always came out on the other side as friends. The same cannot be said for Lively and Meester, though.
When rumors swirled that the two stars reportedly couldn't stand each other, a rep for Lively did little to rectify the situation, issuing the statement, "Blake and Leighton have never been best friends, and never professed to be. Blake goes to work, does her job, and goes home." Ouch.
Executive producer Joshua Safran later told Vanity Fair, "Blake and Leighton were not friends. They were friendly, but they were not friends like Serena and Blair. Yet the second they'd be on set together, it's as if they were."
For years, Jennie Garth was rumored to have gotten Shannen Doherty fired from "Beverly Hills, 90210."
Doherty and Garth are reportedly friends now, 20 years after the filming of "Beverly Hills, 90210," but at the time their drama almost came to blows.
Garth told E! News in 2014 that "there were times when we wanted to claw each other's eyes out." When Doherty's character Brenda was unceremoniously written off the show, while Kelly, played by Garth, stayed on for the show's 10-season run, people were suspicious.
However, it was revealed that a third party was responsible for Brenda's indefinite trip to London: fellow star Tori Spelling, whose father Aaron Spelling, produced the show. She admitted on a Lifetime special "Tori Spelling: Celebrity Lie Detector" that she asked her father to write Doherty off the show after Doherty and Garth almost got into a physical fight.
Shannen Doherty allegedly didn't get along with her "Charmed" co-star Alyssa Milano either.
Milano and Doherty played not just best friends, but sisters. The three Halliwell sisters on "Charmed" were as close as can be, which is why fans were devastated when Doherty's character Prue was killed off in season three.
Since this was the second time Doherty was abruptly written off a show (the first time was after four seasons of "Beverly Hills, 90210"), people were suspicious. Milano admitted to tension, stating "we definitely didn't get along." The studio even tried to bring a mediator to help alleviate the situation, but according to Milano and other co-star Holly Marie Combs, that only made it worse.
Doherty, for her part, told Entertainment Tonight, "There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work." She continued, "I'll miss Holly a lot."
In 2013, Milano admitted on "Watch What Happens Live," "I can tell you that we were on the air with her for three years and there were definitely some rough days."
The set of "Charmed" seems like it was a bit of a powder keg — in 2020, Rose McGowan claimed that Alyssa Milano made the set "toxic AF" on Twitter.
McGowan was brought in to replace Shannen Doherty, and she played another sister: Paige. Though Paige and Phoebe (Milano) were close as could be, apparently their real-life relationship is a lot more acrimonious.
After Milano and McGowan got into a Twitter spat about politics, McGowan decided to break the hearts of "Charmed" fans everywhere and tweeted that on set, Milano "threw a fit in front of the crew, yelling, 'They don't pay me enough to do this s---!'" and added that she exhibited "Appalling behavior on the daily." She added that she "cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF."
For her part, Milano later tweeted, "Hurt people hurt people. Empowered people empower people. Loved people love people."
Alex Pettyfer told the world that Channing Tatum wasn't too happy with him after a conflict during the filming of "Magic Mike."
Mike, played by Tatum, took Adam, played by Pettyfer, under his wing in "Magic Mike," but real-life events were much more acrimonious.
By Pettyfer's own admission, "Channing Tatum does not like me. For many reasons. Many being my own fault." According to Pettyfer, the bad blood began when he kept to himself on set, because he was self-conscious — the "Beastly" star admitted that this might have come off as standoffish.
But the real drama came when Pettyfer rented an apartment from a friend of Tatum's — and then moved out before paying four months worth of back rent. Pettyfer received an email from Tatum calling him out. Tatum wrote, "Don't f--- my friends. You owe money. Pay the f---ing money. Don't be a clown."
Isaiah Washington was fired due to inflammatory remarks he made to on-screen best man Patrick Dempsey on the set of "Grey's Anatomy."
Preston Burke and Derek Shepherd grew close after surviving many a life-threatening situation on "Grey's Anatomy." In real life, however, Dempsey and Washington were anything but.
Access Hollywood first reported that the two had been involved in a "violent brawl" on set, allegedly after Demspey showed up late one day. Later, details emerged alleging that Washington had used a homophobic slur against his fellow TV doctor.
Another "Grey's" star, TR Knight, then claimed Washington had been referring to him, and came out as gay in response. Washington admitted to using the slur, but claimed that it hadn't been used in a homophobic context, and wasn't even directed at Knight — he meant it as a way to refer to "somebody who is being weak."
Even though Washington stated multiple times that he wasn't homophobic, this effectively ended his time on the show, and he was written off after season three.
William Shatner is said to have feuded with basically everyone on the set of "Star Trek," but specifically with co-star George Takei.
This iconic beef has been festering for over five decades. Much has been written about Shatner's legendary ego, but no one has ever gone in as hard on Shatner as Takei has.
Takei wrote in his 1994 autobiography "To The Stars," that Shatner would pretend not to know him on set, and that he even tried to prevent his character Sulu from taking command of a starship. Shatner responded in his own autobiography with some subtle shade, claiming that he never really got to know Takei because he was barely on set (implying that Takei's part was small).
The drama escalated when Shatner apparently didn't receive an invite to Takei's 2008 wedding. Captain Kirk went off on his co-star, saying "There's such a sickness there, it's so painfully obvious that there's a psychosis there." Takei claimed that he did invite Shatner, and that the invite must have gotten lost in the mail.
Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi allegedly couldn't even be on set together for the last three seasons of "The Good Wife."
Kalinda and Alicia played best friends on "The Good Wife," but had a glaring lack of scenes together for three seasons. While Panjabi left during the show's sixth season, she hadn't acted with her on-screen bestie since season three.
Fans were promised a scene between the two ladies in Kalinda's last episode, and they got it — but it was later revealed that the two still hadn't appeared together. Instead, the show employed the use of split screens to create the illusion of the two being in the same room.
Why couldn't they stand being together? It's never been confirmed, though shade has definitely been thrown. Margulies claimed that the green screen was used because Panjabi was already working on her new show "The Fall," but Panjabi quickly refuted that, tweeting "'The Fall' was not even in production at that time and I was in New York ready to film the scene!"
Dominic Monaghan has been vocal about his disdain for "Lost" co-star Matthew Fox.
While Jack and Charlie got along great on "Lost," their real-life counterparts decidedly did not — which came as a shock to many.
The drama started during a Twitter Q&A where Monaghan was asked to get his buddy and former co-star Fox on the social networking app. He minced no words in his response, simply saying, "He beats women. No thanks."
Though fans of Fox came to his defense, Monaghan stood his ground, even alleging to one fan, "You don't know either of us. He beats women. Not isolated incidents. Often."
Fox responded in an interview with Men's Journal. "The Cleveland situation, the Monaghan situation, was a pile of bulls---, and I'm not gonna waste too much breath on that," he said. "In the 46 years I've been breathing on this planet, I have never hit a woman before. Never have, never will."
Terrence Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle in "Iron Man 2" after salary disputes — which he blamed on Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr.
It's hard to picture anyone but Cheadle as Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes, aka Iron Patriot. But in the very first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was played by Howard. At first, it wasn't totally clear why the switch happened in the sequel, though rumor had it that the studio wanted to significantly cut Howard's salary (as the first actor to sign on to the film and its potential sequel, he was making more than anyone else) as well as his role.
Throwing shade, Howard told Andy Cohen on "Watch What Happens Live" that, "It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to re-up for the second one, took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out." Howard confirmed in 2010 that he had pushed for Downey to be cast.
While Downey has never confirmed any bad blood, he did tell MTV: "I had nothing to do with that decision. I love Terrence very very much. That's all I'll say because I haven't talked to him yet."
Their beef might be over though — Howard posted a photo of the duo on Instagram in 2016.
The dynamic between Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels was a lot more hate than love during "Star Wars."
Bickering droids C3PO and R2D2 didn't always get along in the "Star Wars" movies, but it was still plain to see that the two robots cared for one another. The same cannot be said for the actors behind them, Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels.
Despite being the only two actors that had appeared in all of the "Star Wars" movies (up until Baker's death in 2016), they just couldn't connect. Baker repeatedly took jabs at Daniels for years, claiming that Daniels "never wants to have a drink with any of us," and stating that "I just don't like him and have never understood what his problem is."
Daniels, on the other hand, has been a bit more sly about his feelings for Baker. In 2011, Daniels told The Mirror, "I mean, R2-D2 doesn't even speak. He might as well be a bucket."
For what it's worth, Daniel expressed his condolences on Twitter when Baker passed away in 2016, writing: "Sad to hear of Kenny's passing. 1 of the truly original cast, so famed for his iconic role as R2. He'll always be remembered by so many fans."
Ariana Grande and Jennette McCurdy's friendship couldn't seem to handle the cancellation of their show "Sam & Cat."
Grande and McCurdy got their starts on "Victorious" and "iCarly," respectively. When both of those shows came to an end, Nickelodeon decided to create "Sam & Cat," a show featuring both leads.
This all came to a screeching halt when racy photos of McCurdy were leaked onto the internet. Immediately after, the star skipped the Kid's Choice Awards, which many people thought was a result of the leak. However, TMZ reported that McCurdy didn't go to the ceremony because she found out that Grande was being paid a significant amount more money than she was for "Sam & Cat."
The drama began heating up when McCurdy posted a long essay about letting go of a toxic friendship, which people quickly assumed was about Grande. "Sam & Cat" was eventually canceled.
The feud became impossible to deny once McCurdy released her own web series in 2014 that featured a ditzy character named Gloriana who shared some characteristics with Grande — namely, both were vegan, could rock a high ponytail, and had a thing for bunny ears.
Thankfully, the two seem to have called a truce. McCurdy congratulated Grande on her engagement to then-fiancee Pete Davidson, and Grande tweeted "i love her forever" in response.
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