Betty White was 'called 'f***ing c***' by Golden Girls co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan

A month after Betty White’s death at 99, Golden Girls casting director Joel Thurm has revealed that her main co-stars Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan did not like her and called her profane names.

Thurm appeared on The Originals podcast – hosted by entertainment journalist Andrew Goldman and produced by Los Angeles Magazine – as he recalled White’s tumultuous relationship with Arthur and McClanahan.

He explained: ‘Literally Bea Arthur, who I cast in something else later on, just said, “Oh, she’s a f***ing c***,” using that word.”‘

Goldman – who previously referred to White as ‘America’s Sweetheart’ – seemed shocked by the revelation as he asked: ‘Bea Arthur called Betty White a C-word?’

Thurm replied: ‘Yeah, she called her the C-word. I mean, I heard that with my own ears.

‘And by the way, so did Rue McClanahan. Rue McClanahan said it to me in Joe Allen’s [restaurant]; Bea Arthur [when she was] on the set of Beggars And Choosers.’

Thurm is sharing these details and other stories in his forthcoming book Sex, Drugs, & Pilot Season: Confessions Of A Casting Director which is due out in the spring. 

He gave an example of the friction on set during the podcast appearance as he recalled how fellow main castmate Estelle Getty began having issues memorizing her lines. She later died at 84 in 2008 from Lewy body dementia.

Thurm explained: ‘And she [Getty] would write the lines on her hand, and … Betty White would make fun of her in front of the live audience.

‘That may seem like a minor transgression, but it really does get to you … I have no idea how Estelle Getty felt, but I know the other two did not like [White] at all.’ 

Back in 2011, White actually addressed the on-set issues with Arthur in an interview with The Village Voice as she said: ‘Bea had a reserve. She was not that fond of me. She found me a pain in the neck sometimes. 

‘It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she’d be furious!’

Arthur died at her Brentwood home of lung cancer at the age of 86 on April 25, 2009.

McClanahan died aged 76 on June 23, 2010 after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

White died of natural causes just three weeks ahead of her 100th birthday.

She had previously won best supporting Emmys in 1975 and 1976 but is best known for winning another one in 1986 for The Golden Girls.

The highly-popular sitcom was centered around four older women living together in Miami that featured an age demographic rarely highlighted on American television.

White also was nominated for an Emmy six other times for her portrayal of the widowed Rose Nylund, a sweet, naive and ditzy Midwesterner, on the show, which ran from 1985 to 1992 and was one of the top-rated series of its time.