All the Details of Betty White and Bea Arthurs Feud

‘Golden Girls’ Betty White and Bea Arthur famously had a feud for many years that has since become section of their legacy. So we explain what came about.

Jamie Lerner - Author

The reminiscences behind the scenes of The Golden Girls weren’t always so golden. A famous feud between actors Betty White and Bea Arthur transcends their legacies and will almost always be an element of how we bear in mind their iconic characters. Betty played Rose, a ditzy woman with a trusting heart, and Bea performed Dorothy, a stern lady with a just right head on her shoulders.

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Their characters’ friendships have been not likely, however it sounds as if, the friendship between the actors was much more fraught than their onscreen opposite numbers. So what was once the feud between Betty White and Bea Arthur in reality about?

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Betty White and Bea Arthur have been pals when filming ‘The Golden Girls’ began.

The courting between Betty and Bea wasn’t at all times strained. In truth, Rue McClanahan, who portrayed Blanche, shared in an interview with the Television Academy, “Bea was an excessively, very eccentric lady. For example, she wouldn’t cross to lunch until Betty would pass together with her. She wouldn’t cross to dinner between presentations in our bathrobes until Betty would walk across the tarmac with her to our feeding room, whatever they call that.”

The feud between Betty and Bea looked as if it would develop after Betty gained an Emmy award.

Betty gained the first Emmy award among The Golden Girls' primary forged, even supposing they all eventually received Emmys. Even nonetheless, because she received the first one, there used to be allegedly some stress on set after the rite. In Rue’s memoir, My First Five Husbands… and the Ones Who Got Away, she instructed that this was once the point of no go back for Bea and Betty’s friendship.

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Bea’s son, Matthew Saks, reiterated this. “My mom was the actual deal,” he informed The Hollywood Reporter. “I feel she felt she used to be more of an actress than Betty. Mom got here from Broadway. Betty starred on a sport display at one point.” But that wasn’t all that fueled the feud.

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Rumors of jealousy between Bea and Betty circulated, but their feud had different reasons.

One of the major resources of pressure between Bea and Betty was allegedly because of their behaviors on the set of The Golden Girls. Bea liked to stick in persona the complete time, whilst Betty often broke character to speak with and appeal the target audience. “It would make my mom unhappy that during between takes Betty would pass and talk to the target market. It wasn’t jealousy. It was a focus thing,” Matthew informed Closer.

He endured, “My mother unknowingly carried the attitude that it was a laugh to have any person to be angry at. It was nearly like Betty changed into her nemesis, anyone she could at all times roll her eyes about at paintings.” Despite any onstage tension, on the other hand, Matthew was once certain to inform THR, “There was no combating at all. They had been buddies. At one level they lived shut enough that they might drive every different to paintings.”

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However, a 2022 interview between leisure journalist Andrew Goldman and The Golden Girls casting director Joel Thurm on The Originals podcast reinvigorated the feud rumors. Joel told Andrew, “Literally Bea Arthur, who I solid in one thing else later on, just stated, ‘Oh, [Betty’s] a f--king c--t,’ the use of that phrase.”

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Rue also told a story at a memorial for Bea about when Bea met Rue’s husband. According to Rue, Bea mentioned, “I really like Rue. Betty’s a c--t.” But Rue shared this as a comic story about her buddy and not for instance of a “feud” between Bea and Betty.

Betty later spoke out about the “hate” between herself and Bea, even if they gave the impression to stay buddies later in lifestyles.

In 2011, a pair of years after Bea gave up the ghost from lung cancer, Betty in any case spoke out on the “feud” between herself and Bea. “Bea had a reserve,” she stated at a TimesTalk (by the use of The Village Voice). “She used to be not that fond of me. She found me a ache in the neck occasionally. It used to be my certain perspective — and that made Bea mad on occasion. Sometimes if I was glad, she’d be livid!”

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But that sometimes occurs even between the best possible of friends. In 2004, Bea and Betty have been photographed together at a DVD Release Party for The Golden Girls, and in 2008, they attended the sixth Annual “TV Land Awards” together. Women are steadily pitted against one any other, so it’s simple to put out of your mind that now and again, moments of discontent and public teasing will not be exemplary of Bea and Betty’s advanced courting.

The Golden Girls is to be had to stream on Hulu.

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