For those who grew up watching Bayside High School's cool crew — plus Screech — Zack
Morris was the ultimate authority on leaving button-up shirts open and rocking rad sneakers.
Meanwhile, Kelly, Jessie, and Lisa were girl squad goals before that was even a thing,
and AC Slater proved it's hip for guys to do ballet.
Behind the scenes, though, the cast has dealt with troubles a lot worse than the ones listed
in the theme song.
"If the teacher pops a test, I know I'm in a mess and my dog ate all my homework last
night."
Prepare to have your childhood ruined with these dark secrets that haunted the cast of
Saved by the Bell.
Mr. Belding would not approve of any of this.
Zoinks!
Dustin Diamond was hardly the innocent, doe-eyed dude he portrayed on TV.
The actor behind Screech was sentenced to jail for four months in 2015 after he was
convicted of concealing a weapon and disorderly conduct after stabbing someone during a Christmas
Day bar brawl.
Diamond claimed he was defending his girlfriend after she was insulted and assaulted, and
the victim's wounds were reportedly not serious.
"It's not like what you see on TV, I'll tell you that."
Diamond did a second stretch behind bars in the spring of 2016 after allegedly violating
his parole.
You pig
Jessie Spano spent a lot of time schooling A.C. Slater on the proper treatment of women,
but it looks like his real-life counterpart should've been taking notes.
Mario Lopez was accused of sexual assault not once but twice during the show's prime.
In 1993, an 18-year-old girl claimed she was date-raped by Mario Lopez, and a second victim
emerged shortly after the first allegations were made public.
Prosecutors dismissed the claims for lack of evidence, but in Dustin Diamond's explosive
tell-all, Behind the Bell, he said NBC execs paid the accuser to "keep her mouth shut"
and that Lopez often displayed aggressive sexual behavior on the set and "didn't take
no for an answer."
Of course, two can play at the memoir mud-slinging game, and Lopez dished his own pile of dirt
on his former co-star in his book, Just Between Us, writing that Diamond displayed some lewd
and crude behavior himself, like taking Polaroid pictures of his nether regions on set.
"And I got along with Dustin too.
I got along with...I was probably the only one that really like kinda...kinda like, I
was really cool with him, and...he was always a little quirky and, you know but uh cause
he was a couple years younger.
But at that time when you’re a teenager it’s a big difference."
Perhaps that was just an indication of things to come?
Shortly after the Saved By The Bell spin-offs spun out, Diamond capitalized on the craze
one last time for a 2006 sex tape he starred in and directed, with the unfortunate title:
Screeched: Saved by the Smell.
Yuck.
Hot hookups
The young love of Kelly and Zack might've been series canon, but behind the scenes,
the exchanges of ardor were a bit more complicated.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar himself once admitted, that most of the cast members dated one another
throughout the filming process and that it became a bit "incestuous."
He was first romantically linked to the actress who played Lisa, Lark Voorhies, for three
years, no less, even while his on-screen interest was Tiffani-Amber Thiessen's character, Kelly.
According to Diamond's version of the story, both Gosselaar and Lopez had dealings with
all three of their female co-stars at some point or another.
He wrote in his book, quote:
"If Kelly was interested in Slater one week, then backstage there was a lot going between
them in Mario's room.
Then, if Jessie kisses Zack, then you know Elizabeth Berkley is going in Mark-Paul's
room."
End quote.
Lopez admitted in his biography that he definitely cheated on co-star Tiffani-Amber Thiessen
when they were together.
He wrote, quote:
"There was so much beauty everywhere and I had so much affection to share."
End quote.
Did we say yuck once already?
Turtle smash
Those faithful to the Lisa Turtle school of sass might be sad to know that the actress
has been mired with many personal issues in her post-Saved by the Bell days.
Lark Voorhies publicly battled with her mother after her mom revealed that Lark was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder, which the actress denied.
After she eloped with music producer Jimmy Green in Las Vegas, her mom filed for a restraining
order against him for being a known gang affiliate and threatening her safety.
Voorhies defended Green in a confusing interview but ultimately filed for divorce from him
after a few months.
After the divorce, she later blasted her ex on Instagram for losing his job and violating
a restraining order.
The post was deleted, and she blamed hackers for it.
For what it's worth, she also accused hackers of being responsible for posts claiming she
had lupus, for slamming Bill Cosby, and for bolstering Diamond's written claims that her
ex-fiance Martin Lawrence was abusive to her.
Hey preppy
In another one of Dustin Diamond's shocking book reveals, which inspired Lifetime's Unauthorized
Saved by the Bell Story movie, he not only accused his co-stars of regularly smoking
marijuana in their dressing rooms, but he also insinuated that Mark-Paul Gosselaar used
performance-enhancing drugs to get buff before Saved by the Bell: The College Years commenced
filming.
Diamond wrote, quote:
"He suddenly exploded with manliness, loading 25 pounds of muscle on his once-scrawny frame
in, oh, about a month."
End quote.
Screech shutout
After throwing so many of his co-stars under the bus, Diamond recanted some of the words
in his book, saying that it was largely ghostwritten and he was manipulated by his publisher.
It may have been too little too late, because he was noticeably not involved with either
of the major cast reunions that took place over the years.
“I will say…”
"I actually don't have a hard time doing this for some reason."
The book was ultimately panned by several of his co-stars as a negative and unrealistic
look at their shared history.
"It is negative, that I must say.
It’s like everything I’ve heard about his book is that it is negative, and I don't
remember those things."
Lopez, however, stayed true to being a Diamond apologist and interviewed his former co-star
himself about his arrest and book, telling Screech to his face that it "didn't exactly
paint a flattering picture of [his] fellow castmates."
Diamond agreed, saying that it was "fabricated" by publishers and that he wanted to put everything
behind him.
He also publicly apologized to his former co-stars in November 2016.
"I will say, uh: Guys I think you're fantastic.
Working with you has been, uh, just one of the icons of my life.
And I’m sorry that this has taken advantage of me, you know, the book and other situations
I’m sure we’ll talk about here.
Uh, but I’m sure that you’ve experienced downfalls as well in your time, and I'm still
lovin' you guys."
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