Golden Girls Casting Director Claims Castmates Hated Betty White

Betty White, a Hollywood icon, died on December 31st, 2021, leaving the world with an irreplaceable loss. She also passed at the age of 99, two weeks before her 100th birthday. Betty captivated American television audiences for decades. That being said, there were some who didn’t like Betty White. Betty White’s Golden Girls co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan allegedly called her a ‘f*cking c*nt.”

Golden Girls casting director Joel Thurm said a month after Betty White’s death that her key co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan did not like her and called her foul names. Thurm spoke about White’s rocky relationship with Arthur and McClanahan on The Originals podcast, hosted by entertainment journalist Andrew Goldman and produced by Los Angeles Magazine.

“Literally Bea Arthur, who I cast in something else later on, just said, ‘Oh, she’s a f*cking c*nt,’ using that word.”

Goldman, who had previously referred to White as “America’s Sweetheart,” appeared taken aback by the new. He questioned and Thurn responded to his query.

“Bea Arthur called Betty White a C-word?”

“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.”

Thurm’s upcoming book Sex, Drugs, & Pilot Season: Confessions Of A Casting Director, which will be released in the spring, will include these and other anecdotes. During his podcast interview, he shared an example of the squabbles on set, recalling how fellow main castmate Estelle Getty was having trouble learning her lines. She died of Lewy body dementia in 2008, at the age of 84.

“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.”

In an interview with The Village Voice in 2011, White addressed the on-set problems with Arthur.

“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!”

Betty White had previously been confronted with the fact that Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan disliked her. They had a tense relationship with one another. Thurn’s discoveries, on the other hand, enraged the audience.

Stay tuned to Thirsty for more information.

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