“Family Matters” fans are calling out Jaleel White over his perceivably “passive-aggressive” dig at his former sitcom co-stars during a recent interview.
The actor who played Steve Urkel throughout the show’s nine-season run developed a reputation of being “difficult” and a pain to work with when his colleagues Jo Marie Payton and Reginald VelJohnson began to recount their experiences sharing the spotlight with him.
White was only 12 when he guest appeared on the ABC series in 1989, but his popularity as the nerd who lived next door to the Winslows not only secured him a spot on the cast but also the No. 1 slot on the call sheet as its leading star.
Payton, who portrayed Harriet Winslow, has previously described White as being confrontational and even alleged, “One time he actually wanted to physically fight me.” Their near “melee” was sparked during a difference in visions for a season 9 episode titled “Original Gangsta Dawg,” where White played Urkel’s street cousin OGD.
Per his own recollection, White recalled feeling not welcomed and hints of jealousy from the cast as he became the show’s focus among fans.
In a recent appearance on Sirius XM’s “Radio Andy” show, he was again presented with an opportunity to address the on-set tension. Host Andy Cohen specifically asked, “They at one point said publicly that you were not that easy to work with. Did that surprise you?”
The ’90s star responded, “They’re also over 70 and I’ve been told not to argue with my elders from the time I was 12 years old, so, you know, with Jo Marie it’s always like what day did I catch her or what day did the interviewer catch her.”
White is currently promoting his memoir, “Growing Up Urkel,” and noted that he discusses the rift in the book. In an effort to hit back at being labeled difficult, he argued that he is “self-aware” enough to be accountable for at least displaying nuisance behavior.
“As a 13-year-old kid, anytime I was called to set, I always brought my basketball. I dribbled my basketball everywhere, and I can hear the script supervisor, Joyce Webb, going, ‘Oh, here he comes with that basketball.’ It was tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, constantly,” White admitted. “If that is the extent to which I was called difficult, then OK,” he said in the clip shared on Instagram.
Immediately, a user commented, “He’s pushing 50 and still has brat behavior.” Someone else hit back at White’s remarks with, “So he discounts the validity due to their age? Get over yourself.”
A third reaction read, “He always comes across exactly how his co-workers describe him….he /seems absolutely insufferable, it just oozes out of him. Get over yourself dude, you’re a B-list one-hit wonder actor from 30 years ago.”
But White wasn’t the only person taking hits in the comments. A critic wrote, “lol Harriet was jealous cuz it was supposed to be her show and he blew it up . How you beef with a child idk.” The actress clarified her statements about the on-set beef at last year’s 90s Con.
Jaleel White's father stepped in after Jo Marie Payton and Reginald VelJohnson told Jaleel White that he was doing a disservice to the Black community for one particular scene. Don’t miss an all-new episode of #UNCENSORED this Sunday at 10P/9C pic.twitter.com/OJQd7ohXkx
— TV One (@tvonetv) May 5, 2021
For starters, she said, “Sometimes you bump heads and things — but I’ll always love him. He was always a child to me, and I don’t care how old he is, he’s still a child to me. … tI me, no matter how old he gets, he’ll still be a baby. And I forgive everything because I have that kind of heart to get past stuff.”
VelJohnson backed his on-screen wife with, “He had a lot to deal with because we were already established as a family, but he had to get into the group and introduce himself,” and “We love him. We’re sorry he’s not here, but he’s a special person.”
In 2017, the cast gathered for a special reunion for the first time since “Family Matters” went off the air in 1998. At that time, Payton shared that she and White had spoken about the possibility of a reboot.
According to her, “He said, ‘You know, we can do this.’ And I said, ‘If they dropped a script at our feet when we walked out of here, we would come back in tomorrow, and the next day we’d have a show shot.’”
However, the “Big Fat Liar” star has since shot down any hopes of reprising the role. In his memoir, he writes that he turned down an incarnation of the original series that focused on Urkel and Laura’s (played by Kellie Shanygne Williams) life around 2016.
Instead, White pitched a show idea focusing on him becoming a child television phenom that producers passed on.
