Golden Girls Betty White Finally Exposes Cast Member Who Never Liked Her Years Later

Jan 05, 2019

The Golden Girls is one of the most iconic examples of 80s television series. Following a group of elderly ladies, the series showed the world that just because we age doesn’t mean we have to stop living our lives. The stars of the series, Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty, quickly became household names, rising to fame because of the funny, yet relatable, situations they got into each week.

The series won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series twice during its run and led to three spinoff series, most notably the critical darling Empty Nest.

Despite the show’s great success, not everything was as it seemed behind the scenes. While the series presented the four main leads as having impeccable chemistry, relationships were a little strained on set. In a recent interview with Joy Behar on HLN, Betty White revealed that Bea Arthur did not like her.

As fans of the show know, White played the slightly ditzy Rose on Golden Girls, who often acted as a foil to the more serious Dorothy, played by Arthur. Just as their fictional counterparts sometimes butted heads, so too did White and Arthur in real life.

In the interview, White told Behar that she never fully understood why Arthur never liked her. Elaborating, White said she had good relationships with all of her other Golden Girls cast members, but Arthur always gave her the cold shoulder. Nevertheless, White praised Arthur, telling Behar that the late actress taught her many things about the entertainment industry.

Additionally, White talked about what it’s like to be the last member of the original four. The actress, born in 1922, is actually the oldest of the four main characters on the show, and feels that her being the last survivor is very humorous. White also told Behar a funny story from the set. As fans of the series know, Arthur’s character, Dorothy, is the daughter of Sophia, who is played by Estelle Getty.

The casting is an odd choice as Arthur was older than Getty. To help make Sophia look older, the show’s makeup team would work for hours, applying cosmetics to Getty’s face to give the appearance of wrinkles. Keeping that in mind, White said that the makeup team nearly had a meltdown when Getty arrived on set one morning with a new facelift.

What do you think of the strained relationship between White and Arthur? What are your favourite episodes of The Golden Girls? Let us know - and feel free to pass this along to your friends and family!