Al Bundy’s blunder.
Ed O’Neill has revealed how he “messed up” in his feud with his “Married…With Children” co-star, Amanda Bearse.
O’Neill, 77, starred as Al Bundy in the edgy Fox sitcom from 1987 to 1997. The cast also included Katey Sagal as his wife, Christina Applegate as their daughter, David Faustino as their son, Bearse as their neighbor, Marcy, and David Garrison as Marcy’s first husband.
O’Neill had been in a public feud with Bearse, 65, for years, and recently told Fox News Digital: “Yes, the TV Guide thing happened, I wasn’t sorry for that decision.”
He was referring to a recent appearance he made on his former “Modern Family” co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s podcast “Dinner’s On Me,” where he elaborated about the origins of the feud.
He told Ferguson that it started when the show was given the opportunity to be on the cover of TV Guide, but Bearse and David Garrison were left out, because they “were the neighbors” on the show. They asked him to advocate for them to make the cover, and he refused.
“If I was smarter, I would have said to the two of them – let me go to [creator Ron Leavitt] and talk to him. I should have done that,” he told the outlet. “But instead of that, I said, ‘Hey, no. This isn’t for us the actors, this is for the whole show…the grips, the makeup, the hair…this makes our show have a longer life, maybe.’ That was how I looked at it. I didnt give a f–k about being on the cover, I’d say ‘Why don’t you leave me off the cover and say Al is stuck at work.’”
He admitted that was where he made an error, and he also “messed up” when Bearse, who is lesbian, was getting married.
“And in those days, it was a novelty, it was new,” O’Neill said, referring to the prospect of two women marrying each other.
“And she didn’t invite me to the wedding. And my feelings were hurt. And when I asked her about it, she said, ‘Well, it was a tough call.’ And I thought, ‘Are you confusing me with Al Bundy?’ I didn’t say that, but that’s what I felt like. ‘What do you mean, you think I’m a Neanderthal, or something?’ So, I was angry. If I had a do-over again, I would have said, ‘Amanda, all the best. It’s your call, it’s your wedding. But instead, I lashed out, and I said a joke, but it was a mean joke. That’s my biggest regret about that, I didn’t handle that well at all, I know that.”
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He didn’t specify what his “mean joke” was, but in in a 2013 interview with the Television Academy, O’Neill elaborated on the incident.
He said that when he confronted Bearse about being excluded from her wedding – along with co-star David Faustino, “[She said]: ‘This was a very tough call, but I just feel that you would find it amusing that me and Becky would come in tuxedos in a church and walk down the aisle, and you and David would be snickering and finding it funny.’ I said, ‘Amanda, what is funny about two women in tuxedos, walking down to church?’ ” he continued.
“I started laughing and she said, ‘See!’ And I said, ‘Well, you know why? Because it is f–king funny, and I’m not going to be the only one that doesn’t think so.’ But it was funny. She had a little white tux and, to me, it was funny. But in other words, she may not have been wrong in excluding me.”
