Back in 1998, a big piece of gossip in the celebrity weeklies was that Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts were feuding on the set of their dramedy Stepmom. But, as Sarandon explained on Twitter Sunday night, that particular rumor was manufactured by her very own “PR person.” She and Roberts liked each other “very much,” in fact. The feud was, much to the disappointment of gossip lovers everywhere, a lie.
It’s a story I can personally relate to, as I, like Sarandon, was also accused of feuding with Julia Roberts on the set of Stepmom. But I, like Sarandon, did not have “disruptive arguments” with Roberts over creative differences while filming the iconic story of a young woman who becomes engaged to a divorcé with two young children, as his intimidating and fiercely protective ex-wife slowly dies of cancer.
Nor did I sabotage the interior of Roberts’s trailer by jimmying open the door early one morning before call time and hiding several dozen dead fish inside just because I discovered that she had a larger bathroom than mine. Like Sarandon, I’m not that petty.
I, like Sarandon, did not fight with Julia Roberts over whether or not the film’s most thematic and emotionally significant musical selection should be The Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” instead of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
And though you may have heard that both Sarandon and I “blew up” at Roberts while filming the Thanksgiving play scene and called her “a big-mouthed, no-talent con artist who played Hollywood in precisely the way Vivian played Edward in Pretty Woman,” let me assure you: it simply did. Not. Happen.
With that, I hope nearly two decades of rumors will finally be put to rest. Susan Sarandon did not feud with Julia Roberts on the set of Stepmom, and neither did I.