Before social media wars of words, '90s celebs were meaner,
more personal, and occasionally drew blood.
Not all was fresh and fun behind the scenes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In 1993,
with the show in its fourth season, Janet Hubert,
the original actor behind the tough-loving Aunt Viv, was abruptly replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid.
In a radio interview quoted by the Atlanta Journal, the show's star Will Smith stated,
"I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be 'The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air' show."
Hubert speculated that Smith had something to do with her getting fired. In 2013, she told Yahoo!:
"He did some heinous, horrible things to me."
During the interview, she said the cast needed to have a reunion to squash all of
the drama. But just two years earlier she refused to attend a luncheon with
her former cast members. When Alfonso Ribeiro posted a cast photo in 2017,
she took to Facebook and said she had, quote, "no interest in seeing any of these people."
"We never really together publicly talk about Janet."
Despite all that, Hubert attended the 2020 reunion special, where she changed her original story.
She said she chose to part from the show because they offered her a bad business deal, and claimed:
"[I] was never 'fired.' That misconception was always put out there."
The two apologized to each other and seemed to have made peace.
On January 6, 1994, ice skater Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed in the knee with a baton,
forcing her to pull out of the U.S. Championships,
where her rival Tonya Harding won gold. The assailant? A hitman named Shane Stant,
hired by Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt.
Before the assault, the Harding/Kerrigan rivalry was well-known. In 1991,
Harding bested Kerrigan when she received a perfect score with her historic triple axel.
"She was the first American woman to land that jump in competition."
Harding was technically sound, but Kerrigan had the upper hand when
it came to public image. Despite their differences and their shared desire to
be the best, Kerrigan had believed their relationship was professionally polite.
During the FBI investigation of the assault, Harding continued to practice,
unexpectedly sharing a rink with Kerrigan,
who was wearing the costume she'd had on when she was attacked. Kerrigan told press,
"Humor is good. It's empowering."
At the Winter Olympics on February 25, 1994, just seven weeks after the attack,
Harding placed 8th and Kerrigan won silver. Stant, Smith, Eckhardt,
and Gillooly all went to jail. Harding took a plea and was banned for life from the USFSA.
French Vogue's first Black covergirl, Naomi Campbell, had been walking runways, posing for
magazines, and blazing new territory for Black women in the world of modeling since her teens.
But a new young, beautiful Black model soon came on the scene. By age 17,
Tyra Banks was signed to Elite Model Management and traveled to Paris, where she booked show
after show. Banks was a huge fan of Campbell's, but the competition seemed to have Campbell
more peeved than flattered. In a 2019 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Banks remembered,
"I had a very painful — early days in Paris. The woman that I was looking up to seemed like she
just didn't want me to be there and was doing everything in her power to make me go away."
According to New York magazine, when the two were scheduled to walk for Chanel back in 1993,
Campbell reportedly told Karl Lagerfeld,
"It's either [Banks] or me."
Ultimately, when Banks got her own talk show, she invited Campbell on to make amends.
Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were the faces of the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry.
Notorious B.I.G. was a huge Tupac fan, and Pac returned the admiration. But in November 1994,
Tupac was robbed and shot at Quad Recording Studios while Smalls was
recording for Bad Boy Records upstairs, and Pac was convinced Smalls was involved.
"I had nothing to do with that. It just happened to be a coincidence that he was in the studio."
In December, while Pac was serving 18 months in prison, Smalls released the
diss track "Who Shot Ya." Smalls was adamant that the track was written long before the
shooting and had nothing to do with Tupac, but the timing of its release was awkward.
In '95, Tupac joined Suge Knight's west coast label Death Row Records,
and east coast's Bad Boy became their official enemy.
"All these weak rappers. Nas, all these suckers.
They battling over east and west like this is a game. This ain't no game."
After he got out on bond, he released his own diss tracks, including "Hit 'em Up," where
he threatens Smalls. To make matters worse, Pac was spotted with Smalls' estranged wife,
singer Faith Evans, who he claimed to have slept with. And although Smalls denied any
beef with his former friend, he never reached out to set the record straight.
When Shakur was killed in '96,
fans blamed the east coast. But Smalls didn't want that. He said in an interview with BET,
"One man against one man made a whole West
Coast hate a whole East Coast [...] I've got to be the one to flip it."
He never got the chance. Smalls was killed six months after Shakur.
Although the Charmed sisters were good witches, offscreen, there was bad blood
between them. 90210 alum Shannen Doherty was already known for being difficult to work with
when she took the role of eldest sister, Prue, in 1998. Her 90210 co-stars Jennie Garth and
Tori Spelling both had negative things to say about her. But it was Alyssa Milano,
who played the youngest sister Phoebe, whom Doherty really feuded with.
"So you'd rather have a tense reunion filled with boring chit chat and unimportant small talk."
"No, but otherwise we won't have anything to talk about."
The two butted heads enough that Doherty decided to leave Charmed in its third season.
In 2001, Doherty told Entertainment Tonight,
"There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work."
Milano confirmed the two didn't get along. She told E News,
"There were times when I'd come in and say, 'Good morning, Shannen,' and she
didn't say anything to me. And there were times when she'd come in and say,
'Good morning, Alyssa,' and I wouldn't say anything to her."
In 2021, Milano took some responsibility for their feuding, sharing with Entertainment Tonight,
"I think a lot of our struggle came from feeling that I was in competition rather than it being
that sisterhood that the show was so much about. And I have some guilt about my part in that."
"How is your relationship now?"
"I would say we are cordial."
Sounds like sisters, alright!
Behind the scenes of the 1999 football film Any Given Sunday there was a real
brawl between co-stars LL Cool J and Jamie Foxx. The two played rivals onscreen, but they took it
offscreen as well. Foxx addressed the feud in his standup set, I Might Need Security.
"What happened was: he thought we was really playing football."
Foxx went on to share that a physical altercation ensued between the two during a scripted argument.
"And the next thing you know, he hauled off and hit me!"
But according to LL Cool J,
Foxx was the one who took the scene too seriously and instigated violence.
"We were doing the scene, and I was being aggressive with
him. [...] But this is character to character."
In between takes, he claims that Foxx asked him to be less aggressive, which LL ignored. Foxx then
punched him in the face, and Cool J proceeded to take Foxx's helmet off and hit him back.
Another actor in the film, Bill Bellamy,
was on the scene that day and set the record straight on Facebook Live.
"Jamie turns around and punches LL Cool J in the mouth. Boom."
And the "Mama Said Knock You Out" rapper proceeded to do just that.
The championship fight between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson was one of the
most anticipated sports events of the '90s. The two had been battling without being in the same
ring since the '80s, when Holyfield made the Olympic team the year Tyson failed to qualify.
The fight for the Heavyweight Championship was finally set for November 9,
1996. Tyson had the odds in his favor, but Holyfield ended up winning by knockout,
despite headbutting Tyson several times. A rematch was scheduled for June 28, 1997.
That fight became one of the most infamous events
in sports history. At the start of the third round,
Tyson removed his mouthpiece and bit Holyfield's right ear, tearing off an inch of cartilage.
"Oh my goodness, he's got a bloody right ear! Holyfield bitten by a dirty Mike Tyson!"
The fighters were separated and the fight continued until Tyson
bit Holyfield's other ear and was immediately disqualified.
In subsequent interviews and his book Undisputed Truth, Tyson confessed,
"I just wanted to kill him. Anybody watching could see that the head butts were so overt. I
was furious, I was an undisciplined soldier and I lost my composure."
Despite the public upset and dramatic aftermath, the two are now on good terms.
July 29, 1981 was a joyous occasion for millions all over the globe: Princess
Diana and Prince Charles were getting married. But despite it being one of the most lavish and
anticipated weddings of the century, there was nothing glamorous or romantic about the union.
"Whatever 'in love' means."
According to Diana's friend and astrologer Penny Thornton, the couple knew their relationship was
no fairytale. In the documentary, "The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess," Thornton
revealed that, the night before the wedding, Charles told Diana that he didn't love her.
Diana was deeply unhappy, so much so that she took to self-harming. In 1992,
the couple separated. Two years later, Charles declared his marriage to Diana
"loveless" and admitted to being unfaithful. Raunchy phone calls between him and his lover
Camilla Parker Bowles were released to the public. Diana reportedly referred to Camilla as
"the Rottweiler," and believed Bowles to be the reason her marriage to Charles was so unhappy.
"Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."
By '96, Charles and Diana's divorce became final.
She would die tragically in a car accident a year later.