10 TV Couples Who Hated Each Other in Real Life

If you grew up with network television shows in the 70s and 80s, like I did, most of the shows were ensemble pieces, and it seemed like everyone enjoyed each other’s company. Most TV couples seemed as if they were pretty compatible in real life, like the Jeffersons or Archie and Edith Bunker, Simon and Simon, Mr. Roarke and Tattoo…it always seemed like Mr. Jefferson, as played by the legendary Sherman Helmsley, might have benefited from some anger management counseling, but overall, I never had the feeling he hated Isabel Sanford. And the Cunningham household always seemed like a loving home. But here's ten couples who probably weren't so happy showing up to work...

• Dynasty wasn’t exactly the place you would find a loving home, though Blake Carrington (the late John Forsythe) and his second wife, Krystal (Linda Evans) seemed to have a blissful and supportive union, Forsythe and Evans supposedly hated Joan Collins, who played Blake’s first wife, Alexis Colby.

• In the 90s, the shows I loved the most were The X Files and Seinfeld. I don’t think Jason Alexander hated any of his co-stars, though he did threaten to leave the show when he was written out of an episode, but when it came to Mulder and Scully, rumor has it David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson hated each other in real life (and perhaps still do as the show’s 2017-2018 season kicks off).

• Did you know Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher hated each other during the first season of That 70s Show? They had to pretend to like each other (Kunis was all of 14 at the time) to get through their scenes. All’s well that ends well, though: the two married in 2015 and have two children!

• I don’t think Jon Cryer (I loved him as Duckie in Pretty in Pink and will forever—he was a role model and a fashion exemplar in one of the great films of my youth) hated Charlie Sheen, but when the two worked on Two and A Half Men in 2003, I don’t think they hated each other in real life. They were actually friends, but it was a complicated friendship, to say the least, as Cryer describes it in his memoir, So That Happened: “I began to imagine scenarios in which I enthusiastically agree to go to Mary Poppins with him. Then afterward, when he says, ‘Thought I'd head back to the room with a prostitute, get really f—ing high, decimate the place, then toss her in the closet,’ I say, ‘No, I don't think you should do that.’ Then he says, ‘You're right. Let's get ice cream.’ Then everything is better.”

• And poor Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush, who starred as Lucas Scott and Brooke Davis, respectively, on One Tree Hill and were forced to work together after their 2006 divorce. Things were much pleasant for Selma Blair on the American version of the Australian comedy Kath & Kim – Blair hated her wardrobe but got along wonderfully with her co-star, SNL alum Molly Shannon.

• If former Glee star Naya Rivera doesn’t hate her ex-boyfriend and former co-star, Mark Salling, she’s quite forgiving. The couple dated for three years, but during their relationship Salling told Rivera his publicist had advised him not to go public with the relationship so as to preserve his image as a heartthrob—they broke it off in 2012, and Salling was arrested on child pornography charges four years later. Rivera said, “I think everyone should have that one relationship where you look back and ask yourself, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ Unless, of course, that relationship was with someone who had a sizable stash of child porn on his computer. Then, by all means, regret everything.”

• As for The Vampire Diaries, stars Ian Somerhalder and Kat Graham are best friends these days, but they hated each other during the show’s first season. "Ian and I used to not like each other at all. We hated each other first season," Kat told AOL. "Now he's my best friend in the cast. He's the person I can say in 30 years will be one of my closest friends."

• What about Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion? The Castle stars supposedly hated each other so much, according to an inside source, that Fillion is the reason Katic quit the show in 2016, after tolerating years of bullying, some it so intense he made his co-star cry.

• It was also in 2016 that The Gilmore Girls revival roared back to the small screen. Lauren Graham (Lorelai) and Scott Patterson probably don’t hate each other in real life, as Patterson himself once said of Luke and Lorelai, "Their chemistry is so pure and so strong." It’s hard to fake that, right? And both stars have separately denied that they hate each other, contrary to a few rumors. But they are actors, so...

• The biggest recent scandal involving a TV couple was that involving the separation of Flip or Flop stars and Tarek and Christina el Moussa, who were married in real life. Was the hit show the cause of their problems? Not that I know, but it must be quite difficult to be famous, especially as a couple. According to In Touch, the relationship began to falter in May 2016 when police responded to "a call of a possibly suicidal male with a gun." Flip or Flop insiders have also revealed that Tarek verbally abused Christina on set and might have had a drinking problem. Thinking about a career in reality TV? Careful what you wish for.

The small screen always looks kind of cozy, and with so many new beginnings and happy endings, it’s odd to think what you see isn’t necessarily what you (or anyone else) gets. I’m hoping someone produces a reality show about married couples in counseling. Whatever happens onscreen, you’ll know it’s the same once you hit the remote and turn it off.