Comedy icon, Hollywood superstar... and one of the industry's nastiest bullies? A whole lotta people love Bill Murray — but a whole lotta people hate him, too.
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00:00Comedy icon, Hollywood superstar, and one of the industry's nastiest bullies? A whole
00:04lot of people love Bill Murray, but a whole lot of people hate him, too.
00:08Bill Murray made his directorial debut in the 1990 heist comedy Quick Change, which
00:12co-starred Geena Davis. In her memoir Dying of Politeness, Davis recalled an uncomfortable
00:16meeting with Murray about the film. According to Davis, she had to resist his continual
00:20attempts to use an electric massager on her. She wrote,
00:23"...I said no multiple times, but he wouldn't relent. I would have had to yell at him and
00:26cause a scene if I was to get him to give up trying to force me to do it. The other
00:29men in the room did nothing to make it stop."
00:31Murray apparently responded to being rebuffed by being unnecessarily mean to Davis while
00:35filming. As she recalled in an interview with the On with Kara Swisher podcast, they were
00:39shooting on location when Murray began yelling at her, in full view of the crowd that had
00:43assembled to watch the film. She said,
00:45"...I was literally shaking. He got the opportunity to really put me in my place and really shamed
00:49me."
00:50Davis said that her perception of Murray was permanently altered by what he'd put her through,
00:53and she would never again be able to enjoy watching one of his performances. She told
00:56Vanity Fair,
00:57"...He comes off as an affable, fun-loving guy, and many times he was or could be. But
01:01once I had that experience, on day one of the movie, then everything about him after
01:05that was completely colored by knowing what lurks within."
01:08Long before he appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or played Scott Evil in the Austin
01:11Powers movies, Seth Green was a child actor. While appearing on YouTube talk show Good
01:16Mythical Morning, he recalled one of those early gigs, appearing in a Saturday Night
01:19Live sketch featuring Bill Murray. According to Green, he encountered the actor backstage,
01:23where Murray, in Green's words, made a big fuss about him being in his seat.
01:27"...And I was like, that is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several
01:32lengths of this sofa. Kindly f-off."
01:35Murray decided to teach the youngster a harsh lesson in the showbiz pecking order, given
01:39that he was a huge star and Green was just a kid. To get his point across, Murray allegedly
01:43grabbed Green and held him upside down by his ankles.
01:45"...He dangled me over a trash can, and he was like, the trash goes in the trash can!
01:50And I was screaming!"
01:51The whole thing came to a painful conclusion when Murray released his grip, sending Green
01:56crashing headfirst into the trash can.
01:58"...I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room, and, like,
02:04just cried."
02:06Bill Murray co-starred with Richard Dreyfuss in the 1991 comedy What About Bob, and it's
02:10fair to say their working relationship was hardly a love fest. Murray later confirmed
02:14to Entertainment Weekly that they hadn't gotten along, but it was Dreyfuss who provided a
02:17disturbing anecdote about their time together on set. He told Yahoo! Entertainment,
02:21"...He was an Irish drunken bully, is what he was."
02:24Dreyfuss recalled that the inebriated comedian exploded when he suggested some script changes
02:27to him. He told the outlet,
02:29"...and he put his face next to me, nose to nose, and he screamed at the top of his lungs,
02:33"'Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!' That was only the warm-up act, too."
02:36With Murray following up by hurling a heavy glass ashtray at his co-star, Dreyfuss told
02:41his interviewer,
02:42"...he threw it at my face from closer than you are, and it weighed about three-quarters
02:44of a pound, and he missed me. He tried to hit me. I got up and left."
02:48Murray has since suggested that he deliberately tried to get under his co-star's skin as a
02:51form of method acting. In a 1991 interview with Deseret News, he said,
02:55"...while he was talking, I got in real close to crowding. I put my head on his shoulder,
02:59screamed into his ear and did all sorts of annoying things. Some of that was even in
03:02the script. No, wait, none of that was in script. I made it all up."
03:07Director and producer McG worked with Bill Murray on the 2000 action movie Charlie's
03:10Angels. In a 2009 interview with The Guardian, McG bragged about getting into physical altercations
03:15with the actors he's worked with. He said,
03:17"...I don't think there's been a film I've made where there hasn't been some kind of
03:19physical fight. I mean, I've been head-butted by an A-list star, square in the head. An
03:23inch later and my nose would have been obliterated."
03:25When asked to reveal that particular thespian's identity, McG initially hesitated. Finally,
03:29he admitted,
03:30"...It was Bill Murray. You know, it's a passionate industry."
03:33When he was asked about McG's claims during an interview with The Times, Murray denied
03:36that the incident had ever happened. He declared,
03:38"...That's bulls—. That's complete crap. I don't know why he made that story up. He
03:42has a very active imagination."
03:43Murray went on to diss the director, and he held nothing back, adding,
03:46"...No, he deserves to die. He should be pierced with a lance, not head-butted."
03:51It appears that Bill Murray's time as host of Saturday Night Live in the 1990s was fraught
03:55with tension and conflict. In an interview on Sirius XM's Jim Norton and Sam Roberts
03:59radio show, SNL star Rob Schneider spoke about Murray's attitude on set.
04:03"...He's super nice to fans. He wasn't very nice to us."
04:05"...Interesting."
04:06"...He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted."
04:09"...He did!"
04:10"...Wow."
04:11"...Absolutely hated us."
04:12Chris Farley, in particular, took the brunt of Murray's disdain.
04:14"...He hated Chris Farley with a passion, like, seething, looking at him."
04:18Schneider claimed that he wasn't entirely sure of the reason for the animosity between
04:21the two comedians, but theorized it could have originated in Farley's obsessive emulation
04:25of John Belushi's substance-abusing, out-of-control behavior. This isn't entirely implausible,
04:29given that both Belushi and Farley died of drug-related causes at the age of 33. And
04:33that wasn't all.
04:34"...Really hated Sandler, too."
04:35"...Who, Murray?"
04:36"...Murray. Hated him."
04:37Still, Schneider took solace in his belief that Murray hated him a little less than the
04:40rest of the cast.
04:41"...The least of the hate was to me."
04:43"...Oh, that's nice."
04:44"...I took great pleasure in that he hated me less. That is my hero."
04:49Lucy Liu was joined by Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz for Charlie's Angels, with Bill
04:53Murray playing their handler, Bosley. While appearing on the Los Angeles Times' Asian
04:56Enough podcast, Liu recalled rehearsing a scene that Murray had allegedly rewritten
05:00without telling anyone. She soon began to notice he was making offhanded insults that
05:04seemed to be aimed at her. Liu recalled,
05:06"...I was like, wow, he seems like he's looking straight at me."
05:08Uncertain whether what she felt was happening was actually happening, she decided to confront
05:12Before long, she said, it had become what she called a one-on-one communication. Finding
05:16the language she was using to be, in her words, inexcusable and unacceptable, she decided
05:20to call him out, even though she was much less well-known than any of her co-stars.
05:24Liu said,
05:25"...I stood up for myself and I don't regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem
05:28pole you may be or wherever you came from, there's no need to condescend or to put other
05:31people down."
05:32In a subsequent interview with the Times, Murray appeared to defend his behavior, albeit
05:36without referencing Liu by name. He said,
05:38"...Look, I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional in working with me.
05:41When our relationship is professional and you're not getting that done, forget it."
05:45Solange Knowles made her Saturday Night Live debut in 2016 when she performed her hit,
05:49"'Don't Touch My Hair." Bill Murray was in attendance, as was TV writer and producer
05:53Judd McMayard. In a tweet posted years later, Mayard claimed to have witnessed Murray behaving
05:57inappropriately toward Knowles. She wrote,
06:00"...your yearly reminder that I saw Bill Murray put both his hands into Solange's scalp after
06:03asking her three times if her hair was a wig or not."
06:06After the post went viral, Mayard offered some elaboration, claiming that Murray had
06:09insisted on touching her hair immediately after her set. She said,
06:12"...she had just finished performing that song in SNL when he did it. That's the audacity
06:16of whiteness."
06:17While Knowles never officially said anything on this subject, her fans assumed she'd confirm
06:21the story when she liked Mayard's tweets about the incident.
06:24Jay Pharoah was a member of the Saturday Night Live cast when he ran into Bill Murray, who
06:28was hanging around backstage at the time. During an appearance on Shannon Sharpe's Club
06:31Shay-Shay podcast, Pharoah recalled the meeting.
06:33"...He's not even hosting. He's not hosting this week. He's just there."
06:37Murray, who Pharoah claimed was inebriated at the time, began needling him, which soon
06:41escalated to insults. Murray repeatedly called Pharoah Fatboy before approaching him and
06:45hitting him over and over in the same place on his body. At a certain point, Pharoah grew
06:49so annoyed by this that he decided to pick Murray up and body-slam him, WWE-style, into
06:54a sofa.
06:55"...Drunk out of his mind. No recollection, probably, of this whatsoever. But I slammed
07:01him."
07:02According to Pharoah, his own personal experience with Murray seemed to mirror all the other
07:04negative anecdotes that had started to leak out alleging a pattern of bad behavior.
07:08"...And now all them stories are coming out about Bill Murray? Yes, you can confirm them.
07:13That man is something up with him."
07:16Chevy Chase became the breakout star during the first season of Saturday Night Live before
07:20exiting partway through the following season. When he returned to host in the show's third
07:23season, he was reportedly loathed by his former co-stars. Bill Murray, who joined the show
07:27as his replacement, was particularly displeased with Chase, leading to a now-legendary backstage
07:32fistfight between the two. As detailed in Saturday Night to Backstage History of Saturday
07:36Night Live, tension between Chase and Murray had been building up all week. At one point,
07:40the two exchanged insults before finally throwing punches at each other, right as the show was
07:44about to go live.
07:45Decades later, Chase discussed the altercation during an interview with Time. He said,
07:49"...I discovered later it was what the instigation of John Belushi, who apparently was a little
07:53bit jealous that I had become the standout guy the first year, when John felt he deserved
07:57to."
07:58Speaking with Empire, Murray also looked back on their brief battle, insisting that the
08:00passage of time had given the whole thing far more weight than it deserves. Murray said,
08:04"...It was really a Hollywood fight, a don't-touch-my-face kind of thing."
08:07Just a few years later, the pair co-starred in the classic golf comedy Caddyshack, so
08:11nobody's feelings could have been hurt too much.
08:14Bill Murray and Harold Ramis were friends and frequent collaborators, having known each
08:17other since their days in the Second City improv troupe. When Ramis directed Murray
08:21in the beloved 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, however, their creative differences led to
08:25bitter clashes that created a serious rift in their friendship. Communication between
08:28the two became so strained that producers insisted Murray hire an assistant who could
08:32act as a go-between. Murray did as he was told, but hired an assistant who was both
08:36deaf and mute and could only communicate via American Sign Language. Ramis later told Entertainment
08:40Weekly,
08:41"...That's anti-communication. You know, let's not talk."
08:44Following Groundhog Day, Murray and Ramis didn't speak for two decades. In her 2018
08:48book, Ghostbusters Daughter, Life with My Dad, Harold Ramis, the director's daughter
08:51Violet Ramis Steele shared her memories on their relationship. As she wrote,
08:55Her father tried not to take it personally, but nevertheless felt stung by Murray's decision
08:59to sever all ties with him. According to Steele, Ramis was, in her words,
09:03"...heartbroken, confused, and yet unsurprised by the rejection."
09:05Murray finally reached out to Ramis while he lay on his deathbed, having lost the ability
09:09to communicate. According to Steele, he paid her father an unannounced visit at 7 a.m.,
09:14accompanied by a police escort and brandishing doughnuts. Murray spent the next couple of
09:17hours speaking to Ramis.