In 2019, we celebrated 30 years since first being introduced to the lovable cast of Saved By The Bell.
Things may have seemed bright and cheery on-screen, even when dealing with sensitive topics, but behind the scenes, it was anything but! We’re here to clue you in on ALL the juicy drama, fights, and hookups you may not know actually went down.
Related: Perezmas 2019 — Nine Nibbles Of Nostalgia
And really, there’s no better way to prep for the revival of the series, hitting NBC‘s streaming service Peacock soon!
LOTS Of Arguments On Set!
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good times between Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen, Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley, Lark Voorhies, and Dustin Diamond.
While chatting on The Hollywood Reporter‘s Award Chatter podcast in May 2019, the Zack Morris portrayer reflected on some of the tiffs which the cast got into:
“Sometimes we loved each other and sometimes we hated each other. There were moments where Peter Engel [series producer] had to sit us down and say, ‘Guys we have to film a show here,’ because sometimes we weren’t talking to each other…because of the romantic entanglements and maybe you would piss of Tiffani and because Tiffani’s friends with Mario, now Mario’s not talking to me. And vice versa, something happened between Mario…It was a very small universe that we lived in and that we operated in.”
Plenty Of Hookups, Too!
If you thought what went down on-screen was a bit incestuous, just wait until you hear about their real life! In 2009, Gosselaar tole People:
“All of us dated at one point or another—it was incestuous! Sometimes the girls would gang up on the guys. Tiffani and Elizabeth would hate me, and then they’d hate Lark because Lark was talking to me, and Mario was supposed to side with someone. All that stuff you did in high school, like, ‘How could you talk to him?'”
Ten years later, while appearing on Anna Faris‘ podcast Anna Faris Is Unqualified, he briefly explained dating Elizabeth:
“You’re in an environment—you know how it is. When you’re working on a set, and we were young, there’s no one around, really. I mean, you work and live in a bubble.”
However, it was his relationship with Miz Voorhies which was allegedly the most serious. On-screen, they portrayed childhood BFFs — but IRL they were much more serious and dated for three years.
He wasn’t the only one who dealt with off-screen relationship struggles. In Lopez’s 2014 memoir Just Between Us, he revealed he and Tiffani “went to movies, went out to eat, hung out at parties, danced together,” before eventually becoming an official couple. However, it was short-lived:
“I thought that being loyal to Tiffani was the right thing to do. But I can’t say that I was capable at that age of following through on my noble intentions.”
More Juicy Drama!
Some storylines were just too serious for Saturday morning TV! In his memoir, I Was Saved by the Bell: Stories of Life, Love, and Dreams That Do Come True, Engel explained the history about one of the most infamous arcs for Jessie Spano:
“What fans don’t know is that, when I originally wrote the episode with Tom Tenowich, Jessie was hooked on speed, not caffeine pills. But Standards and Practices, the censorial department of NBC, vetoed it, saying speed was too serious for Saturday mornings.”
Eventually, they reached a compromise and settled on caffeine pills.
Another juicy tidbit? The set was not for potty-mouths! According to MTV reports, Engel did not allow swearing on-set by the young actors to keep things squeaky clean.
Tell-All Books
In 2009, Diamond published Behind the Bell, a tell-all book about the show making allegations about off-camera antics with his co-stars including alleged hookups and steroid usage. Though this was the source material for Lifetime‘s The Unauthorized Saved By the Bell Story in 2014, most of the memoir was debunked by the cast.
This tell-all was the final straw for Diamond and the rest of the cast, and things have seemingly never been the same since it was published. The troubled star was left out of the 20th-anniversary reunion in 2009 because of the book.
However, Gosselaar shared in a May 2019 interview that he would not be opposed to working with the Screech portrayer:
“Listen, I’ve worked with actors that I couldn’t stand being in the room with. Dustin is not one of those people. Who cares about the book? The book was fiction…I don’t know what it was.”
Despite all the drama of the past, much of the cast seems close as ever today! In April 2019, fans were “so excited” to see the Bayside High alums gathering for dinner with their spouses: Catriona Gosselaar, Greg Lauren, Courtney Lopez, and Brady Smith.
And so far, Mark, Elizabeth, and Mario have signed on for the forthcoming reboot and will be featured in some capacity alongside a slew of new faces!
What surprised U the most, Perezcious TV addicts?! Sound OFF (below) in the comments and share with us!!
[Image via NBC/YouTube.]
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