'I was angry': Ed O’Neill regrets lashing out at ‘Married… with Children’ co-star Amanda Bearse over wedding snub
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Ed O’Neill has spoken frankly about his time on ‘Married… with Children’ and the relationship he shared with his castmates.
In the show, he played Al Bundy while Katey Sagal starred as his wife.
The other cast members were Christina Applegate, David Faustino, Ted McGinley, and David Garrison.
A TV Guide cover led to a fight between Ed O’Neill and Amanda Bearse
The sitcom that ran from 1987 to 1997 also featured Amanda Bearse, with whom O’Neill’s differences began over a TV guide cover.
The cover reportedly included O'Neill, Faustino, Sagal, and Applegate but did not feature Bearse and Garrison.
The ‘Modern Family’ star revealed on Jesse Tyler Ferguson's podcast ‘Dinner's On Me', as per The New York Post, “They were told they could not be on the cover. Because they had a rule: there's only so many [that] can be on the cover.”
He continued, “Now they violated that for like two shows, I think it was ‘M*A*S*H’ and ‘Dallas.' That was an exception. They weren’t doing it for us. And we were lucky to get it. It was like the sixth year in or something.”
“We were thrilled to get the cover of TV Guide. It was big,” O’Neill explained.
The 77-year-old actor further stated, “And Amanda and David came out in unison from their dressing room. We were on the soundstage, and she said, ‘We expect you to go to Ron Leavitt and tell him this doesn’t work. We’re all on the cover.’"
“If I was diplomatic, I should have said, ‘Fine. I’ll talk to him about it,” the ‘Dutch’ star stated. “But instead, I said, ‘No. I’m not doing that. I'm sorry you guys aren't on the cover. I really am! I wish you were! But we can't do anything about it."
“What do you want me to do, lie to you, and tell you that you know, I'm going to go to bat for you? I'm not’” he apparently added.
Ed O’Neill remorseful about Amanda Bearse feud
However, O’Neill does not feel right about it now. He reportedly said, “That's my regret.”
O’Neill also asserted to Fox News Digital that “the TV Guide thing happened” and he “wasn't sorry for that decision.”
He added, “If I was smarter, I would have said to them, the two of them because their feelings were hurt. I would have said, ‘Look, let me go to Ron and talk to him, OK?’ I should have done that.”
Amanda Bearse did not invite Ed O’Neill to her wedding
But that was not the only incident that escalated his feud with Bearse, who is a lesbian.
O’Neill recalled, “Following that, Amanda was getting married. Now, in those days, this was a novelty. I mean, I shouldn't call it a novelty – it was new.”
He shared, “And didn't invite me to the wedding. And my feelings were hurt. So when I asked her about it, and she said, ‘Well, it was a tough call.’”
He revealed that he blasted at the 65-year-old actress and asked her, “‘Why? What do you mean? What do you think, I'm a Neanderthal or something?' So I was angry.”
However, now O’Neill thinks he should have behaved calmly.
“If I had it to do over again, I would have said, 'Amanda, all the best. It's your call. It's your wedding. You have who you want there.' But instead, I lashed out,” he mentioned.
O’Neill asserted, “I said something that I thought – it was a joke, but it was a mean joke, you know? I wish I had that to do over. That's my biggest regret about that. I didn't handle that well. I know that.”
