Sally Struthers says Betty White ‘fat-shamed’ her over cookies

Sally Struthers has revealed she did not find a pal or confidante in Betty White. 

The All in the Family actress says the late Golden Girls star once “fat-shamed” her in front of a group of their peers after she reached out to grab a cookie sitting on a plate in front of her at White’s house. 

“I have to say, now that she’s gone, I wanna talk about Betty White for just a moment,” Struthers said on a recent episode of the Let’s Talk About That! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti podcast. “I know everybody loves her — they loved her so much they signed petitions to get her to guest-host Saturday Night Live — I know all that. I didn’t have such a great experience with her.”

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The 77-year-old A Man on the Inside actress went on to describe White as a “very passive-aggressive woman,” explaining the incident that left a bad taste in her mouth occurred when the pair were working together on the pilot for a new game show in White’s Los Angeles home. 

“She asked her housekeeper to bring in a plate of whatever to us while we were all sitting and talking about what was working about the game show and what wasn’t working. A plate was set in the middle and it was cookies, I think,” Struthers recalled. “So I reach for a cookie and she said in front of everyone, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear. You don’t need a cookie.’ Totally fat-shamed me in front of the rest of the people in the room, and I thought, ‘Gosh, that’s not nice.’”

White, a five-time Emmy winner, died at 99 in 2021, less than a month before her 100th birthday. A beloved entertainer, she not only showed off her comedic chops on series like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but also highlighted her sense of humor on the game shows Match Game and Pyramid throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and beyond. 

However, White is best recognized for her portrayal of everyone’s favorite elderly sweetheart Rose Nylund on Golden Girls, which ran for seven seasons, from 1985 until 1992. She later reprised her role in its single-season sequel, The Golden Palace. 

On the podcast, Struthers explained that she had a personal connection to the series — which also starred Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, and Rue McClanahan — because she lived near the house used for the facade of the Golden Girls home. 

“My house was on a street called Saltair, and four houses up the street from me was the house that was filmed as the exterior for Golden Girls,” she said. “I lived four houses down from the Golden Girls house!”

Watch Struthers talk about White and more in the podcast interview above.