Over the past few years, there’s no doubt that the biggest trend in TV has been reboots of classic shows from the 90s and 2000s. Some of them are good, and some of them are…less good (BH90210, looking at you), but there’s always a level of excitement that comes with seeing your favorite TV characters back together. Just yesterday, we got our first photo of the entire family assembled for the Lizzie McGuire reboot, and I almost screamed, I was so excited. But happy on-screen reunions often come with tense off-screen ones, and behind the scenes drama can run rampant. That’s apparently the case with Will & Grace, and now we have some crazy new details about what’s been going down when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Will & Grace was obviously a huge hit when it first aired from 1998-2006, so it was a no-brainer when NBC decided to bring it back. They revived the show in 2017 with all four original stars, and it was a critical ratings success. The show was subsequently renewed for two more seasons, and season 11 (which just premiered last night) will serve as the series finale. But while the show has done well for NBC, it seems like the cast is having some trouble getting along.
On Thursday, TVLine reported that Megan Mullally is taking a “temporary leave of absence” from filming, and that she’ll be absent from two episodes later this season. While it’s not unheard of for actors to miss certain days of filming for other projects or personal reasons, it’s a pretty big deal that she’ll be missing from two full episodes. And according to the reports, Mullally’s leave of absence is related to friction on set between her and Debra Messing. Yikes.
While we don’t know what the tension is about, it’s probably been a long time coming. While Megan Mullally and Debra Messing have reportedly never been close, things seemed to take a turn earlier this year, when fans noticed that Megan was no longer following Debra on Instagram, and she subsequently unfollowed costar Sean Hayes as well. Megan still follows Eric McCormack, but none of her three costars follow her. I still don’t understand who spends all their time checking which randoms celebrities aren’t following each other, but they are truly doing the lord’s work.
All this Instagram following and unfollowing nonsense definitely suggests that things probably aren’t all good on set, despite efforts to make us think otherwise. Last month, Eric McCormack responded to rumors of behind the scenes drama in Us Weekly with a less-than-convincing statement: “It seems crazy. It is crazy! I think people worried about that entirely too much. The four of us get along like a house on fire. We always have.”
Hey, Eric? It sounds like you’re overcompensating for something. It’s one thing if there’s not some huge feud between the entire cast, but claiming that you’re all best friends when you’re unfollowing each other on Instagram left and right doesn’t exactly make a strong case. I’ve also never really liked the “house on fire” figure of speech, and especially in this case, it just makes me think that their relationships are all burning down. The Will & Grace cast has a lot of big personalities, so it would honestly be surprising if none of them had ever clashed on set. We might not know the specific cause of the current drama yet, but it seems pointless to pretend like it doesn’t exist.
Season 11 of Will & Grace just premiered, and they’re still filming, so I have a feeling everyone will be keeping quiet about any drama for now. NBC is paying them all a lot of money, and watching Karen and Jack’s shenanigans might feel less fun if they were tweeting nasty things at each other in real life. But hopefully once it’s all over Megan and Debra will both release juicy tell-all books about their side of what went down, because my little gay heart really needs to know all the tea.
Images: Shutterstock
Internet hoaxes are nothing new, and we’ve probably all fallen for a scam at one time or another. The thing is, the hoax you fell for was probably one of those chain emails in 2009 that you had to forward to 12 friends or else they would die in a fire. But you’ll be glad to know that celebrities are just like us, and they’re still falling for the same dumb hoaxes that you believe in middle school.
This week, an old post about Instagram changing their privacy policy to own anything you post resurfaced, and it quickly spread across the platform. People were outraged that Instagram would try to take ownership of their photos and videos, which like, whatever, but it wasn’t even real to begin with. I thought it was cute when my friend’s mom posted it, but when the A-list celebs started jumping on the bandwagon, I was really just confused. Are these people dumb? I won’t list off every single celeb who posted about it, but here are some of the best ones.
Most of the celebs who posted about it have since deleted their photos, because they basically look like clowns. But just as an example of what the hoax looks like, here’s what T.I. posted, and it’s still up. Personally, I don’t really care about the message, but I love the design choices that were made her. The icy blue background is chic AF, and I love how the word “Instagram” randomly gets bigger at the end of the paragraph. T.I. didn’t make this, but clearly whoever did has a passion for graphic design.
“Let this serve was formal & FINAL notice on my behalf. Thx in advance.” This sounds like one of my college professors emailing me about my late assignment, but like…it’s T.I.
Pink posted the message, and made sure to clarify in her caption that she didn’t want to offend anyone. I’m not sure who would be offended by anything about this, except maybe the fact that apparently Pink has no common sense? Idk, it’s not that serious.
I’m also a big fan of Debra Messing’s journey with the hoax. There are more plot twists here than an episode of Will & Grace, and I’m somehow just as entertained. Good to know that Debra Messing gets all her news from Snopes.
Rob Lowe, eternal heartthrob, clearly didn’t get the hoax memo, but he couldn’t just post the same one as everyone else. Instead, he posted a weirdly blurry, cropped version in which you can’t even read the whole message. Way to stick it to the man!
I love Rob’s low-key caption of “#word,” but the best part of his post were the comments from his son Johnny, who is literally me reacting to anything my parents do online:
I almost fell off my chair at “come get him.” But really, do these celebs not have experience dealing with these things? Or like, lawyers to look them over? These people have probably signed hundreds of contracts in their careers, yet they think that posting a janky screenshot on Instagram with a caption like “word” is going to hold up in court? I’ve watched enough Law & Order to know that this thing would be immediately thrown out by any legal professional.
But while dozens of famous people fell victim to the hoax, others took it as a chance to make some hilarious #content. John Mayer, who has seriously turned into a must-follow on Instagram in the last year, made it clear that he has no problem with Instagram using literally all of his sh*t.
Okay, all of these are things that I didn’t know I needed, but now I’m desperate for them. Like, how many meatloaf recipes is John Mayer hiding? What are these woke magic tricks that he mentions? John, the people need answers!!! But actually, the best part is him poking fun at everyone else acting like these screenshot text posts are legally binding, because like I said before, lol.
Ellen DeGeneres also took the hoax as an opportunity for comedy, and a little shameless self-promotion. My biggest unpopular opinion is that I think Ellen is pretty annoying, but I’m not mad at this. Everyone who got tricked by a social media hoax that probably started in 2011 deserves to get trolled, and who better to do it than Ellen and John Mayer?
Did you post this on your Instagram before realizing it was fake? If so, good for you, because now you’ll be permanently protected in a court law if someone tries to use your photos against you! But actually, you probably just shouldn’t post anything that would be evidence of you committing a crime? Just seems like the safest option to me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to go back to being reckless on Instagram, and I don’t care who knows.
Images: Shutterstock; troubleman31, pink, therealdebramessing, robloweofficial, johnmayer, theellenshow / Instagram
Back when it was still 2016, Leslie Jordan (don’t feel bad if you don’t know him by name because I don’t know who TF that is either) confirmed to radio station KPBS that NBC was poised to revive one of our old time favorites, Will & Grace, for a 10 episode arc airing in July. Exciting right? Well, turns out whoever Leslie Jordan is, he can also add liar to his resume.
According to Vanity Fair, “Looks like hopeful ‘Will & Grace’ fans will have to keep waiting for that rumored revival…On Monday, Debra Messing let one fan down gently on Twitter, saying, ‘sadly,’ that Jordan was mistaken, and that the revival is currently ‘nothing beyond talks.’” Her costar Eric McCormack, otherwise known as Will, echoed her statement with his tweet Sunday, “Nothing official yet.”
Sadly Leslie was wrong. Nothing beyond talks. https://t.co/NDmKoH2Iql
— Debra Messing (@DebraMessing) January 2, 2017
Well Leslie Jordan, you got everyone’s hopes up for nothing. Thanks a lot.
Let’s just keep our recently created emoji fingers crossed that NBC actually comes through with this one. 2017 doesn’t have room for false promises.
