Why This Former ‘Desperate Housewives’ Star Was Called the ‘Meanest Woman’ By Her Castmate
Desperate Housewives brought us eight seasons of gossip, adultery, and feuds as audiences followed the lives of the residents of Wisteria Lane. This imaginary superb was home to the show’s housewives, each with their own complicated lives that looked great from the outside, but hid secrets and lies behind closed doors. In the years since the show ended in 2012, new information has come to light about the real-life dramas that occurred between the actors and creatives behind the scenes.
Was Teri Hatcher the most difficult cast member to work with?
Teri Hatcher played Susan Mayer, one of the central characters on the show, and has been at the heart of rumors surrounding the cast for years. The five main stars of the show were involved in a Vanity Fair cover story shoot for the May 2005 edition and by April, rumors were already swirling around about the cast squabbles.
Speculation that it was Hatcher’s doing centers around reports from an unidentified ABC rep who apparently warned the team “not to let Teri go to wardrobe first.” When they didn’t heed the warning the rep reportedly also said: “This is a problem. I’m getting text messages from Eva [Longoria]. Everything is not fine.”
During the shoot, it was reported that Marcia Cross threw a fit because Hatcher was next to her in the middle of the photo, and Hatcher was repositioned to the far side of the group in final photos. Even the cover fed into the gossip exclaiming: “You wouldn’t believe what it took just to get this photo!”
In the years since the show ended, Hatcher is regularly left out of the conversation in posts by fellow actors looking back on their time on the show. Though it is unclear is she was the source of the problem or just an unwitting victim.
Eva Longoria seemed to come to her defense in an OK! Magazine interview saying: “You know, Teri was just a loner. I don’t know. Me and Marcia [Cross] and Felicity [Huffman] were a lot closer because we are just girlie girls who like to be in each other’s company. Teri didn’t. There was no bad blood, I think that was just the way it was.”
Perhaps it was for this reason that she was also noticeably absent from a few court cases involving cast and crew members as well.
Show creator Marc Cherry got in legal trouble
Though the rumors may have hit Hatcher the hardest, it was show creator Cherry that got in some legal trouble. Nicollette Sheridan sued Cherry claiming that he assaulted her during an argument and then killed off her character from the show in retaliation. The other women of the cast were all brought in as witnesses in the trial, except for Hatcher.
In Sheridan’s testimony, she stated: “Mr. Cherry stepped toward me and hit me upside the head … it was a nice wallop across the head. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe he just hit me. I looked at him, and I could tell he was stunned.”
Cherry claims he was demonstrating blocking for a scene and had only tapped her on the head, but later apologized anyway.
During the course of the trial Cherry also claimed: “There was a problem going on between Nicollette Sheridan and Teri Hatcher… They were furious with each other. Nicollette pulled me aside and told me that Teri Hatcher was the meanest woman in the world because of how she was acting.”
Sheridan’s case was eventually tossed out, but it did bring to light others who had had issues with Cherry. One former staffer told the Daily Beast: “He will dress you down in front of the staff. He will assault an idea. He is very confrontational in this way. He has hissy fits.”
Perhaps the dysfunction among the cast and crew started from the top.
How did the college admissions scandal shed more light on the ‘Desperate Housewives’ feuds?
Huffman got into some legal trouble of her own since the end of the show since she was found out to be part of the college admissions scandal. As cast members — Hatcher was again excluded— wrote letters of support for her, new claims about their time on the show bubbled up in the process.
Longoria’s letter claimed: “‘I dreaded the days I had to go to work with that person because it was pure torture. ‘Until one day, Felicity told the bully “enough” and it all stopped.”
Cherry’s letter stated: “We had a problematic cast member on my show. She was a big star with some big behavioural problems. Everyone tried their darnedest to get along with this woman over the course of the show. It was impossible. And things went from bad to worse.”
Though they never specify which cast member they are referring to, many assume that it was Hatcher, but judging by the shows complicated past, it could just as easily have been Sheridan. One this is for sure, Cherry certainly has enough source material to create several seasons of a new soap-like drama.
