Debuting in 1989, Family Matters was one of the definitive sitcoms of the nineties.
But all the pressures of making a hit show weighed on the actors, many of whom have experienced
some major personal and professional problems.
Here's a look at the scandalous side of Family Matters.
Family Matters' most famous and valuable asset was, surprisingly enough, not originally part
of the series.
Jaleel White's uber-nerd Steve Urkel didn't make his first appearance until halfway through
season one.
He was just some dork who lived next door to the Winslows and came over to bug Laura,
whom he had a big crush on.
But he was a big hit with audiences and network honchos alike.
ABC execs decided that they liked Urkel so much that they were going to make all future
episodes about him.
The non-Urkel cast members went along with the plan, though the shift caused some tension.
"I should fire you, Urkel."
White was aware that the situation got a bit dicey.
As he told Vanity Fair in 2011,
"Things were definitely strained in the early going.
There's no sense in hiding that.
There was a division between myself and the rest of the cast, but over nine years and
215 episodes, obviously relationships get better."
In the first four seasons of Family Matters, the Winslows had three kids.
The older two were Eddie and Laura, and then there was little Judy, played by Jaimee Foxworth.
But then after season four, Judy disappeared, never to be seen or even mentioned again.
Did Urkel erase her with one of his crazy gadgets?
According to Foxworth, the show's creative team wrote off Judy because they didn't want
her around anymore.
In 2017, she told The Root,
"The producers felt that they could do it and no one would notice.
They’d done it with previous shows they had.
They figured no one would really care.
My fans took notice of it.
They figured they could just throw me away, no explanation at all.
Some of my cast members knew before I did."
Her TV mom, Jo Marie Payton, tried to change producers' minds about the decision, but to
no avail.
In 2014, Darius McCrary, forever known as Eddie Winslow, got engaged to Tammy Brawner
of the Harlem Globetrotters.
But by 2017, the marriage was falling apart, and it was reportedly ending in a frightening
way.
In February of that year, Brawner received a restraining order against McCrary after
alleging multiple counts of abuse against her and their infant daughter.
Brawner reported that McCrary's excessive drinking and drug use made him violent, and
that he not only struck her, but also held his daughter over a pot of boiling water while
screaming about how he wished she'd never been born.
Brawner also claimed there was another time when McCrary flew into a rage and threw picture
frames around the house, just barely missing hitting anyone.
McCrary was ordered to move out of the family home and stay 100 yards away from his wife
and daughter.
In response, his attorney told E! News,
"Tammy Brawner is no victim…she is a predator motivated by a desperate desire to extort
money out of Mr. McCrary while trying to create an advantage in an impending divorce and custody
battle."
Two weeks after a judge granted Brawner a restraining order against McCrary, he got
another one against her.
McCrary claimed in legal documents obtained by TMZ that Brawner had violent tendencies,
alleging that she threw a hot iron at him, leaving a second-degree burn on his chest.
A few weeks after the courts ordered these two to avoid each other, Brawner filed for
divorce.
Citing irreconcilable differences, she asked that McCrary be blocked from seeing their
daughter until he sought treatment for substance abuse and attended domestic abuse intervention
sessions.
In February 2019, the couple reached a divorce settlement.
Brawner received legal and physical custody of their daughter, with weekly visits for
McCrary.
Additionally, the court ordered McCrary to attend parenting classes and to seek help
for his problems with alcohol, drugs, and violence.
This is all sadly ironic considering that McCrary once founded FathersCare, an organization
that seeks to help men become better and more conscientious fathers.
Darius McCrary isn't the only Family Matters star who's been dogged by abuse allegations.
In 2012, Bridget Hardy, Jaleel White's former girlfriend and the mother of his daughter,
told Star Magazine that two years earlier, their relationship came undone after White
turned violent.
After finding evidence of infidelity on his phone, she confronted him about it, and she
claimed that he then struck her "across the chest area" and pushed her into a toilet.
Hardy got out of the house and took her daughter with her on a planned out-of-town trip.
When they returned, White had changed the locks on the house and placed all of her possessions
in a storage facility.
When Hardy went public with her story, White waved away the allegations.
He said in a statement,
"When you're doing well in life, it's par for the course certain individuals will try
and knock you down.
When the individual is also the mother of your only child it is particularly hurtful."
White further claimed to People Magazine that Hardy made her comments to get an upper hand
in child custody negotiations between the two.
"This was something that spun out of control, that was a dirty tactic by one of her, by
her attorney."
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