The ‘80s TV series, Moonlighting still remains one of the most popular show of its era largely due to its unique story telling and the remarkable chemistry between the two main stars, Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd who played the roles of David Addison and Madelyn Hayes, who worked as partners at the Blue Moon Detective Agency. While Willis and Shepherd gave the audience a pleasurable time with their lighthearted banters and apparent romantic tension, off the screen, their relationship was a complicated one that has led to various speculation by fans for decades.
However, as the series marks its 40th anniversary with a relaunch on Hulu, a number of cast members who worked with the duo during the production of the series have weighed in on the complex relationship between Shepherd and Willis.
‘Moonlighting’ cast members comment on the feud between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd
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Several cast members of Moonlighting have shared their views on the popular feud between the show’s stars. Jack Blessing, who portrayed the character of MacGillicuddy in a 2021 interview with TV Insider, described the production set as one which was always filled with of pressure as the tension between the lead actors was often noticeable. Despite this, he acknowledged that their clashes sometimes enhanced their on-screen performances, noting that when Willis and Shepherd were in sync, their chemistry was electric, but when they weren’t, it created a challenge for all other actors involved.
Corroborating the sentiment, Curtis Armstrong in his 2017 memoir Revenge of the Nerd revealed that the situation during the production of Moonlighting was always tense simply because both “Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd hated each other.”
Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd speak on the conflict between them
Since the show was concluded in 1989, the two stars have since moved on with their different careers, but oftentimes during interviews, questions about the conflict have kept surfacing. In 2012, Willis, who has rarely publicly reacted to speculations about his feud with Shepherd, revealed to HuffPost that instead of focusing on the controversy surrounding him and Shepherd, he would instead concentrate on the good memories he had while working on the project.
However, for Shepherd who had always been vocal about the conflict in several of her interviews, it was quite surprising that all of the trash-talking subsided in recent years, as the actress full of praise for Willis after he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and subsequently retired from acting in 2022.