Betty White and Bea Arthur Had a Tense Shouting Match Backstage on The Golden Girls

For years, rumors have circulated about a long-running feud between Betty White and Bea Arthur, the late stars of The Golden Girls. And as it turns out, those rift rumors have not been so greatly exaggerated.

The ABC News special The Golden Girls: 40 Years of Laughter and Friendship — Special Edition of 20/20, which aired Tuesday night ahead of streaming on Disney+ and Hulu Nov. 12, celebrates the enduring legacy of the classic sitcom, which aired from 1985 to 1997 on NBC.

It also does a deep dive into the complicated relationship between the two legendary, Emmy-winning actresses. Members of the talented team that brought the sitcom to life confirm that the bad blood between White and Arthur — who played Rose Nylund and Dorothy Zbornak, respectively — spilled out of control at least once.

“I used to get calls at home from Bea complaining about Betty,” says The Golden Girls co-producer Marsha Posner Williams on the special. “I got a call from Bea one day, and she said, ‘I just ran into that woman at the supermarket. I’m going to write her a letter. I said, ‘Bea, do yourself a favor. Please write her a letter, read it out loud, and then throw it away, because you would serve no purpose.”

Everything came to a head the week they were working on the 1986 season 3 episode “‘Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas,” the one in which Rue McClanahan’s Blanche Devereaux gives her roommates Rose, Dorothy and Dorothy’s mom Sophia Petrillo (played by Estelle Getty) a “Men of Blanche’s Boudoir” calendar for Christmas.

According to Barry Fanaro, who was part of the sitcom’s original writing team, that’s when “it kind of boiled up.” He says: “We heard yelling backstage. And we all sort of crept out. They were having a fight. It was the only time ever.”

“The next day you could feel the tension in the air a little,” Fanaro continues. Sensing the tension in the air, the stagehands on the sitcom came up with a NSFW idea to cool things down.

“They had taken naked pictures of themselves, riding horses, in saddles, as firemen,” he adds. “So they had planted them in the calendar, and that immediately broke any tension. It was all over. They were hugging each other.”

Adds executive producer Tony Thomas: “Bea laughed so loud.”

The special presents never-before-seen rehearsal footage of the ladies cracking up over the NSFW images on the iconic Golden Girls sofa in front over the live studio audience.

“Whatever was going on between them,” Marsha Posner Williams recalls, “the minute that red light went on, there were no more professional people than those actresses.”

As it turns out, despite both of them being supremely talented, the White and Arthur’s frenemy-ship came down to a difference in their personalities and their approach to work. Mort Nathan, who was part of the original writing team, characterizes their relationship as “one of enormous respect.” However, Thomas explains, “Bea approached her acting like a Broadway actress. She was very serious about her comedy. Betty was a woman from the TV era, and she knew she could turn it on and turn it off at any time.”

Adds writer-producer Mitch Hurwitz, “What would happen, you know, is somebody would go up on a line, and Betty would go to the audience and say, ‘We’re just a bunch of old sluts that can’t remember our lines,’ and get a big laugh, and Bea would be like, ‘Come on, stop doing that.’ It’s totally understandable, you know. She’s trying to focus, and here Betty is, being beloved.”

The relationship between their characters, despite being grounded in a deep love, also had an element of tension. Rose would often tell long stories about St. Olaf or just be generally clueless about things, much to Dorothy’s annoyance. One long-running gag on the sitcom was Rose would say something ridiculous, and Dorothy would smack her on the head with a newspaper or whatever else happened to be lying around.

In a archival interview clip shown in the special, White says of Arthur in character, “Her backhands could lay low the Dallas Cowboys.”

The Golden Girls: 40 Years of Laughter and Friendship – Special Edition of 20/20 includes special appearances by Kelly Ripa, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Laverne Cox, as well as two stars who appeared on the 1985–1992 sitcom as guest stars early in their careers, Mario Lopez and Oscar winner George Clooney.

The Golden Girls: 40 Years of Laughter and Friendship – Special Edition of 20/20 will stream on Disney+ and Hulu starting Nov. 12.