Sally Struthers Thinks Betty White Was Passive Aggressive; She’s Not the Only One Who Disliked the Beloved ‘Golden Girl’
Betty White was a beloved actor whose sunny disposition and wit made her an icon. When the famed actor died in December 2021, just days shy of her 100th birthday, the world mourned. While many in the entertainment business have spoken about White’s kind nature, not every interaction she had with other actors was pleasant.
Sally Struthers recently shared a negative experience she had with White, calling her passive-aggressive. Struthers isn’t the only one; White’s Golden Girls co-star Bea Arthur had a similar take.
Sally Struthers calls Betty White passive-aggressive in a new podcast interview
It has been years since Betty White died, but only now does Sally Struthers feel comfortable enough to talk about her less-than-nice interaction with the star. During an appearance on the podcast Let’s Talk About That!, Struthers recalled how a meeting with Betty White got a bit tense.
Struthers said she met with a group to discuss a pilot for a game show. Betty White was one of the people she was meeting. All seemed fine until White made a fat-shaming comment toward her when she was offered a snack. Struthers said she reached for a cookie from a platter provided to the group, only to have White tell her she didn’t really need a cookie. She went on to say that Betty White was a passive-aggressive woman. The moment embarrassed and angered Struthers, who noted an entire group of people witnessed the interaction.
In the days since she made the statement, the podcast episode has gone viral, with many people weighing in on Struthers’ account of her interaction with White. While White’s fans are agast, Struthers is 100% standing by her statement. The Daily Mail caught up with the septuagenarian as she headed out with her dog. While the photographer quizzed Struthers on her thoughts on White, she kept her cool. Struthers insisted that she simply told the truth about Betty White and hadn’t said anything particularly terrible. She reiterated that she merely told a true story as she remembered it.
Bea Arthur felt the same way about Betty White
While Struthers is the first celebrity in recent years to share a negative story about Betty White, she’s not the only star who had negative feelings towards her. Bea Arthur, White’s The Golden Girls co-star, also had a strained relationship with her.
For years, rumors have suggested Bea Arthur and Betty White disliked each other. White once suggested Bea Arthur was bothered by her optimistic nature. Others have suggested the pair just had different working styles that clashed while on set.
More recently, though, Golden Girls writer Stan Zimmerman revealed Arthur’s issue with White was deeper than anyone thought. In his book The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore, Zimmerman wrote that he was informed, years after the series ended, that Arthur believed White to be “two-faced.”
Bea Arthur died in 2009 at 86, many years before Zimmerman penned his memoir. She didn’t openly speak about her feelings about White. Betty White was the last living member of the cast until her death in 2021.
