Jaleel White is addressing his Household Issues costars’ feedback about his “tough” habits on the set of the hit ’90s sitcom.
The actor, who performed nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel on the collection, joined Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM present Andy Cohen Live this week to debate his simply printed memoir, Rising Up Urkel. The host requested White about his off-screen relationship together with his Household Issues costars, particularly Jo Marie Payton and Reginald VelJohnson, whom Cohen famous have spoken publicly concerning the challenges of working with White again within the ’90s.
“They, at one level, stated publicly that you weren’t that straightforward to work with,” Cohen stated. “Did that shock you to listen to?”
“They’re additionally over 70, and I have been informed to not argue with my elders from the time I used to be 12 years previous,” White, 47, responded. “So you understand, with Jo Marie, it is all the time like, what day did I catch her on or what day did the interviewer catch her? I discuss it within the guide.”
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“So, once you say ‘tough,’ I will be self-aware sufficient to say, okay,” White continued. “You recognize, as a 13-year-old child, anytime I used to be known as to set, I all the time introduced my basketball. I dribbled my basketball all over the place, and I can hear the script supervisor to at the present time, Joyce Webb, going, ‘Oh, right here he comes with that basketball.’ It was faucet, faucet, faucet, faucet, faucet, faucet always.”
“It irritated everyone,” Cohen interjected.
“Yeah,” White stated. “If that’s the extent to which I used to be known as ‘tough,’ then okay. I digress.”
In a 2022 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Payton acknowledged that White was “only a child” when Household Issues was on the air, and blamed “a few of these adults” on set for permitting the younger actor to “run wild and do no matter he wished to do, pondering he can say what he needs to say, you understand, and damage individuals’s emotions and all that.”
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However throughout a 2023 90s Con panel moderated by PEOPLE’s Breanne Heldman, each Payton and VelJohnson sounded a way more conciliatory notice.
“Sure, generally you bump heads and issues,” Payton, 74, stated on the time, “However I’ll all the time love him. He was all the time a baby to me, and I don’t care how previous he’s, he’s nonetheless a baby to me … to me, regardless of how previous he will get, he’ll nonetheless be a child. And I forgive every thing as a result of I’ve that form of coronary heart to get previous stuff.”
VelJohnson, 72, famous that White joined the collection halfway by its first season. “He had rather a lot to cope with, as a result of we have been already established as a household, however he needed to get into the group and introduce himself,” he stated. “We love him. We’re sorry he’s not right here, however he’s a particular particular person.”
On Cohen’s present, White additionally defined why he thought transferring the present from ABC to CBS for a ninth and ultimate season was finally a mistake.
“It was actually time for the present to be canceled to be fairly trustworthy,” he stated. “We had jumped the shark in concerning the seventh season, however you understand, individuals have been making more cash than that they had made for the primary three or 4 seasons.”
“I’ve retained the flexibility to have a look at the present objectively as a viewer and in addition as anyone who was a performer inside the present,” he added, “and we must always have been canceled after the seventh season.”
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White additionally reiterated his resistance to ever doing a Household Issues reboot, evaluating the collection to a different TGIF present, Full Home, and Netflix’s latest Fuller Home revival.
“I embrace the TGIF legacy, however I am additionally cautious to acknowledge that TGIF was a sinking ship, and you can not make exhibits like that proper now,” he defined. “Fuller Home, I really feel like they received away with it as a result of they’ve a schmaltzy, form of vanilla factor that they do this’s very Hallmark-ish to be fairly trustworthy, and it advantages Candace [Cameron Bure] and that is fantastic. However I simply did not really feel like we may get away with that very same model of humor.”
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In line with White, discussions of a possible reboot received far sufficient that he was provided a contract that was to not his liking. “I used to be not provided a direct reboot,” he informed Cohen. “I used to be provided a blind contract with no script and half the pay that I made leaving the present, proper? So, I am like, ‘Wait, wait, what do you imply?’ I do not get to fulfill any producers. I do not get to see a script. ‘We’ll pay you this,’ ” he stated he was informed, “And it is like, you understand, if it is only a money seize and, you understand, I simply, I am not taken with that.”
“If I contact something that is related to Household Issues,” he added, “I wish to advance the legacy and I wish to assist the children’ careers.”
