Jaleel White famously played the nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel on the hit sitcom Family Matters. Recently, his fellow co-stars publicly said that he was rather hard to work with on set. When White attended Andy Cohen Live to promote his new memoir on November 19, he was asked about these comments.
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Andy Cohen, ever the straight-shooting gossip fiend, asked White how he felt about Joe Marie Payton's and Reginald VelJohnson's public comments.
"Did that surprise you to hear?" Cohen asked after bringing up what they said about White.
Jaleel White answered candidly, "They're also over 70, and I've been told not to argue with my elders from the time I was 12 years old. So you know, with Jo Marie, it's always like, what day did I catch her on or what day did the interviewer catch her? I talk about it in the book."
The book he's referencing is his memoir, Growing Up Urkle that's available now.
"So, when you say 'difficult,'" he continued, "I'll be self-aware enough to say, 'okay.'"
Jaleel White Constantly Had A Basketball On Set
One thing White remembers that may have been rather irksome was his basketball.
"You know, as a 13-year-old kid, anytime I was called to set, I always brought my basketball," he explained. "I dribbled my basketball everywhere, and I can hear the script supervisor to this day, Joyce Webb, going, 'Oh, here he comes with that basketball.' It was tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap constantly."
To be fair, I can see how that could be annoying.
"If that is the extent to which I was called 'difficult,' then okay. I digress."
Payton once said to Entertainment Tonight that he was a handful and that he once threatened to fight her. She did also recognize that he was a kid, and blamed the adults on set for letting him "run wild and do whatever he wanted to do." She still has love for the actor, however.
VelJohnson also once said, "He was a wonderful kid, [but] I think working with him was a challenge." He also added, "But overall, I have nothing but good memories from him."
