TV Families Who Couldn't Stand Each Other In Real Life

Blood runs thicker than water, unless it happens to be prop blood. Everybody wishes that their favorite TV families are just as loving and supportive off-camera as they are on-camera, but this is not always the case. Often enough, the actors playing beloved siblings, parents, and even pets have no sense of kinship at all.

Not only in the little-known shows are there disagreements — even big-name productions like "The Brady Bunch" have had their fair share of sibling rivalry. Some names on this list may be surprising.

The reasons for these actors' feuds are many: contract negotiations gone wrong, inappropriate behavior out in the real world, or a plain old distaste for one another. Surely everyone can attest to having one coworker they can't stand but have to pretend to like at meetings. The same can be said for the actors of TV's favorite families — only the stakes are much higher and the pretending is (usually) much harder to detect. So raise a glass to the performances of these TV family actors who couldn't stand each other out in the real world.

Who could forget the public spectacle that was Charlie Sheen's exit from "Two and a Half Men"? It should come as no surprise that Sheen's bright fire burned a few bridges along the way, but which bridges exactly?

The exact timeline of Sheen's departure from the show is unclear, but it undeniably reached a head when he interviewed with Alex Jones about show creator Chuck Lorre, calling him a "clown" among other things you will have to read for yourself (reported by TMZ). Shortly after this interview, Sheen was fired from "Two and a Half Men."

The punches don't stop there. After his firing, Sheen went on to tell E! News that co-star Jon Cryer was "... a turncoat, a traitor, [and] a troll." Cryer, who played Sheen's brother on the show, apparently had not been outspoken enough in favor of Sheen after his firing. Sheen also claimed that Cryer had not reached out to him, although Cryer said otherwise.

It would seem that there are no hard feelings too tough to forgive among family, even on TV. Lorre later told Entertainment Tonight (per ABC News) that he "never felt like he was in a feud" with Sheen. "I loved the guy," Lorre said. Cryer had a more mixed reflection on his time with Sheen. In an excerpt from his 2015 memoir shared with The Hollywood Reporter, Cryer said that "while being a gifted actor and a remarkably smart man," Sheen was not the "rebel" outlets made him out to be. Rather, he "was simply lashing out at the people who told him the party was over."

While Steve Urkel technically shared no blood relation to the Winslow family in the classic sitcom "Family Matters," he was over at the Winslow house and annoying the family often enough to earn an honorary spot at the table. Surprisingly, the irate responses to Urkel by Carl and Harriette Winslow may not have been far from the truth.

On an episode of TVOne's "Uncensored," Jaleel White — who played Urkel — rehashed some of the early tension between himself and the older actors on the set of "Family Matters." In that interview, per Deadline, White said he "was not welcomed to the cast at all." Originally, the Urkel character "was supposed to be a guest spot," and the older actors bristled when the network shifted much of the show's focus over to White's character.

Reporting the same interview, Entertainment Weekly drew special attention to a story White shared about an interaction during filming with Reginald VelJohnson and Jo Marie Payton, who played the Winslow parents. During one episode, White had to put on a dress, and the two older actors pressured him against wearing it. They "were very sensitive to putting Black men in dresses," according to White.

But over time, the familiarity among the cast improved. White recalls how VelJohnson and Payton "helped foster a more harmonious environment" in the later seasons. Isn't that the best any family — real or fictitious — can hope for?

Before she started lunching with the ladies in a "Company" revival on Broadway, Patti LuPone played Libby Thatcher on the sitcom "Life Goes On," a show following a Chicago family as they roll with the punches of life. Notably, this TV family's son Corky Thatcher, played by Chris Burke, was the first character on primetime television with Down syndrome to be played by an actor with Down syndrome.

When it wasn't breaking barriers, however, the show was breaking LuPone's capacity for patience. She starred alongside Bill Smitrovich, a real thorn in her side, who played family patriarch Drew Thatcher. In her 2011 memoir, LuPone describes how by the show's fourth season, she and Smitrovich were "no longer on speaking terms" and adds, "we kissed, we hugged, and when the director yelled 'Cut' we never even looked at each other." Perhaps this is why the show didn't make it to Season 5.

They got one thing right, though: life goes on, whether or not two people make up. In an interview with Connecticut Magazine, Smitrovich spoke about his time working with LuPone and mused, "I think she was upset to have second billing to me, I mean, who am I?" He didn't want to put all the blame on her, but in reference to LuPone's penchant for the dramatic, he said "Patti has a history." Oh-la-la.

It would be easy to romanticize an iconic piece of old Hollywood TV like "The Andy Griffith Show." (In a sense, series lead Andy Griffith wanted that romantic feeling. "It was of a time gone by," Griffith said in a "Today Show" interview.) But some things have always been true, including things like on-set drama.

For the most part, the set of Mayberry seems to have been as blissful as the show made it seem. The one bit of trouble in paradise came from the difficult relationship between Griffith and castmate Frances Bavier, who played Griffith's onscreen aunt and housekeeper. Recalling his time on the set as Opie Taylor, Ron Howard said in a "Television Academy" interview that Bavier probably did not feel "a part of what these boys were up to and their shenanigans," referring to Griffith and castmate Don Knotts' bantering.

While the cast has managed to keep relatively tight-lipped about any unpleasant past feelings, Griffith revealed some of the story of his relationship with Bavier in an interview with Ralph Emery from "On the Record" (per Country Rebel). "She wasn't always in real great shape, emotionally," Griffith recalled from their time on the show. But toward the end of Bavier's life, Griffith called and made amends. "I hadn't talked to her in a long time ... She said, 'I'm sorry we didn't get along better ... It was my fault.'" Hopefully clearing the air gave Bavier some amount of final peace.

Many will remember Roseanne Barr's explosive exit from the revival of her sitcom "Roseanne" in 2018. Even the New York Times was talking about it. A quick summary: Roseanne tweeted about former Obama Administration advisor Valerie Jarrett linking her to "planet of the apes," and she was fired by ABC for the racist remark. The rest of the cast narrowly avoided a complete cancellation of the show by rebranding as the spinoff "The Conners."

In response to the tweet, co-star Sara Gilbert, who played Roseanne's daughter Darlene, made a tweet of her own. Gilbert said "Roseanne's recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show." (per The Guardian). The Guardian reports Barr's response in a Washington Post interview, where she said Gilbert "destroyed the show and my life with that tweet."

Despite the rocky start, "The Conners" went on to flourish on ABC. It would seem that, just like in real life, some family disputes are irreconcilable. Those ones also usually end with changed last names.