The 9 Most Iconic Feuds in Hollywood History
As long as there's been a Hollywood, there have been feuds. And whatever else happened on the set of the upcoming film Don't Worry Darling, the Olivia Wilde-directed project just reminded everyone of that fact on an international stage.
For those who haven't breathlessly followed along for every screenshot, Instagram caption, Twitter video, or Aperol spritz, a brief recap: Florence Pugh and Harry Styles star in mid-century thriller Don't Worry Darling, about a woman who realizes her perfect existence may not be (gasp!) real. Initially, Shia LaBeouf was the male lead, but Wilde alleged in a Variety interview that she fired him. Not so, said LaBeouf (and when Shia Labeouf is the voice of reason, things are bad), who promptly produced screenshots of text messages from Wilde begging him not to quit, along with a video message in which she referred to her female star as "Miss Flo."
Pugh has remained conspicuously silent—down to not doing a moment of press for the film. During the Venice Film Festival press conference, Wilde praised Pugh's performance while admitting that she understood why Pugh couldn't get away from filming Dune 2 for press duties. Ten minutes later, photos showed Pugh arriving in Venice in purple head-to-toe Prada, toasting us all with an Aperol spritz.
Oh, and Don't Worry Darling is where Wilde and Styles began their relationship—the timeline of which is fuzzy compared to the timeline of Wilde's marriage to Jason Sudeikis ending. The rumor is that Pugh was annoyed at how often Wilde and Styles disappeared together on set, which might be why she severely limited her press duties for the film.
There's also a Lee-Harvey-Oswald-was-not-the-lone-shooter-level conspiracy theory that posits Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine (not to mention Pine's memeified reaction as Styles ponderously explained that movies feel like movies when you watch them in movie theaters). Plus, Styles greeted his latest round of queer-baiting accusations by kissing Nick Kroll on the mouth at the premiere. And at no point were Wilde, Styles, or Pugh photographed or seen next to one another.
Whatever went down on the Don't Worry Darling set, we rarely see this kind of high drama and unforced errors in an age of media-trained celebrities. Only time will tell if Miss Flo and company will join the ranks of the quintessential Hollywood scandals, but how does everything stack up to some of the all-time classics? Let's take a look.
Sorry, Don't Worry Darling—nothing is toppling the queens of petty feuding. Davis and Crawford were two of the biggest movie stars of the 1930s and '40s before their careers stalled. They grasped for one last shot at relevancy by agreeing to costar in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. What followed was a feud of legendary proportions, with the dueling divas battling on set and in the press—right up to the night of the Oscars, when Davis was nominated but Crawford upstaged her. Is it any wonder that Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon were eager to take on the roles in Ryan Murphy's retelling of the story in Feud?
Speaking of Feud, a mini-scandal erupted from the FX series when Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland sued over her portrayal in the series, claiming she would never have called her sister, fellow Oscar winner Joan Fontaine, a "bitch." She died before the trial went anywhere, but her feud with Fontaine was well-documented. Their tense relationship stemmed from their childhood and was complicated by professional jealousy and gossip. As Fontaine told People in 1978, "Olivia has always said I was first at everything — I got married first, got an Academy Award first, had a child first. If I die, she'll be furious, because again I'll have got there first!" No photo from the Don't Worry Darling premiere speaks quite as loudly as that of newly minted Oscar winner de Havilland turning away from her sister's congratulations backstage.
Welch made headlines with her on-set feud with Mae West during the making of Myra Breckinridge, but it was her firing one week into filming Cannery Row in 1981 that truly made ripples. Amid reports that she was difficult to work with on set (sound familiar?), Welch sued the producers, alleging that they had tarnished her reputation to such an extent that she could not find work in Hollywood. A jury agreed and awarded Welch $10.8 million; Welch never again starred in a major feature film. "What they did was use me to get financing for the movie, then they dumped me for Debra [Winger], which they'd been planning all along," Welch told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. "The really Machiavellian part of this is that Debra and I were represented by the same agency." Shades of Lea Michele and Beanie Feldstein sharing the same agent during the Funny Girl on Broadway drama, anyone?
Before there was Spitgate, there was Fartgate. Did Winger break wind at MacLaine on the set of Terms of Endearment? That's what MacLaine wrote in her memoir. And in a famously uncomfortable interview segment with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live, Winger appears to confirm there might be some truth to it. Their on-set clashes became as infamous as MacLaine's Oscars speech, in which she clutched the statuette she beat Winger for and said, "I deserve this!" Maybe Pugh learned something from Winger, though, who said, "I found out so early on that you would say something to one person for one interview and it followed you for the rest of your life."
Not all feuds involve a Joan—but maybe all Joans are in feuds? This one was pretty one-sided: When Joan Rivers was offered her own talk show, her friend and mentor, Johnny Carson, was so furious that he never spoke to her or had her on The Tonight Show again. Why? Because Rivers had long been his guest host when he was on vacation, and she didn't talk to him about it in advance. As a result, the two never spoke again, and Rivers didn't appear on The Tonight Show until Jimmy Fallon took over as host.
No, Young did not superglue Woods' penis to his leg. That may be the only thing these two former costars have ever agreed on. Woods sued Young in 1989, alleging that she waged a reign of terror on him and his then-fiancée, one that included an iodine-soaked doll. Young claimed she thought the whole thing was so absurd she didn't think anyone would believe it; within a few years, it was the only thing she was asked about at auditions. Though the suit was settled out of court and Young was awarded $227,000 to cover her legal fees, Hollywood got another stellar entry in its unfounded rumor mill.
The Designing Women debacle was as messy as the Don't Worry Darling press tour—except Florence Pugh isn't taping a Barbara Walters special in secret to be aired as a Sunday night surprise to everyone involved. That's exactly what Burke did in 1990 after months of staging a very public war of words with her bosses, the creators and producers Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason. After telling The Orlando Sentinel that she hadn't wanted to be on the show for a long time, the Thomasons released a statement declaring, "We are all mentally exhausted from the daily trials and tribulations of Delta Burke." After some more accusations were hurled around (and Dixie Carter defended the Thomasons on the cover of TV Guide), Burke was off the show. At least this one had a somewhat happy ending: Burke and Bloodworth-Thomason buried the hatchet, and Burke returned to the role of Suzanne Sugarbaker for one season of Women of the House.
Maybe the most shocking thing about Don't Worry Darling is just how little has been said by the parties involved. Pugh has remained silent, while Wilde has had nothing but praise for her star. Compare that to the war of social media words waged by Cattrall as news came that the third Sex and the City film had been scuttled. After Parker said that Cattrall's remarks in interviews that they had never been friends left her "gutted," Cattrall responded to Parker's condolences about the death of her brother on Instagram, writing in part, "So I'm writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your 'nice girl' persona." Parker has remained largely silent, though she did tell The Hollywood Reporter this June, "I just wish that they would stop calling this a 'catfight' or an 'argument,' because it doesn't reflect [reality]. There has been one person talking."
There's nothing so petty as two hulking muscle men shit-talking each other. In 2016, Dwayne Johnson posted (and quickly deleted) an Instagram in which he publicly decried one of his male costars in the Fast and the Furious movies as an unprofessional "candy ass." That ass belonged to Vin Diesel, who claimed that part of the friction between the two was his "tough love" while getting the kind of performance out of Johnson that the Fast and the Furious franchise demanded. (The word "Felliniesque" was used.) The two went on to film another installment of the franchise without filming together. Though Johnson claimed to regret the initial candy-assed IG post, we can't say we regret anything.
The 9 Most Iconic Feuds in Hollywood History
As long as there's been a Hollywood, there have been feuds. And whatever else happened on the set of the upcoming film Don't Worry Darling, the Olivia Wilde-directed project just reminded everyone of that fact on an international stage.
For those who haven't breathlessly followed along for every screenshot, Instagram caption, Twitter video, or Aperol spritz, a brief recap: Florence Pugh and Harry Styles star in mid-century thriller Don't Worry Darling, about a woman who realizes her perfect existence may not be (gasp!) real. Initially, Shia LaBeouf was the male lead, but Wilde alleged in a Variety interview that she fired him. Not so, said LaBeouf (and when Shia Labeouf is the voice of reason, things are bad), who promptly produced screenshots of text messages from Wilde begging him not to quit, along with a video message in which she referred to her female star as "Miss Flo."
Pugh has remained conspicuously silent—down to not doing a moment of press for the film. During the Venice Film Festival press conference, Wilde praised Pugh's performance while admitting that she understood why Pugh couldn't get away from filming Dune 2 for press duties. Ten minutes later, photos showed Pugh arriving in Venice in purple head-to-toe Prada, toasting us all with an Aperol spritz.
Oh, and Don't Worry Darling is where Wilde and Styles began their relationship—the timeline of which is fuzzy compared to the timeline of Wilde's marriage to Jason Sudeikis ending. The rumor is that Pugh was annoyed at how often Wilde and Styles disappeared together on set, which might be why she severely limited her press duties for the film.
There's also a Lee-Harvey-Oswald-was-not-the-lone-shooter-level conspiracy theory that posits Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine (not to mention Pine's memeified reaction as Styles ponderously explained that movies feel like movies when you watch them in movie theaters). Plus, Styles greeted his latest round of queer-baiting accusations by kissing Nick Kroll on the mouth at the premiere. And at no point were Wilde, Styles, or Pugh photographed or seen next to one another.
Whatever went down on the Don't Worry Darling set, we rarely see this kind of high drama and unforced errors in an age of media-trained celebrities. Only time will tell if Miss Flo and company will join the ranks of the quintessential Hollywood scandals, but how does everything stack up to some of the all-time classics? Let's take a look.
Only time will tell if the Don't Worry Darling drama will join the ranks of the quintessential Hollywood scandals. Here, a look back at the best celebrity feuds in Hollywood throughout history.
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