Why Bill Murray ‘absolutely hated’ Chris Farley, Adam Sandler on ‘SNL’
It was more like “Saturday Spite Live” when he was hosting.
Comedy icon Bill Murray might be revered by fellow “Saturday Night Live” alums, but apparently, the feeling wasn’t always mutual. Former cast member Rob Schneider claimed that the 72-year-old “Ghostbusters” star wasn’t a big fan of the “SNL” cast when he hosted the NBC sketch comedy show in the ’90s.
“He was super nice to fans, he wasn’t very nice to us,” the 58-year-old “The Animal” star revealed during a Thursday guest spot on SiriusXM’s “Faction Talk,” hosted by Jim Norton and Sam Roberts. “He hated us on ‘Saturday Night Live’ when he hosted. Absolutely hated us.”
“It was just naked rage,” he added of their seeming senior-freshmen lunchroom dynamic, Fox News reported.
Schneider claimed that the “Larger Than Life” actor — who was on “SNL” from 1977 to 1980 but guest-hosted five times from 1981 to 1999 — especially loathed Adam Sandler and the late Chris Farley. They were in the cast, along with Schneider, when Murray emceed the show in 1993.
“He hated Chris Farley with a passion,” said Schneider. “Like he was just seething looking at him.”
He speculated that Murray despised the “Tommy Boy” star’s lifestyle, which Schneider compared to that of John Belushi, another rotund funnyman who was close pals with Murray when they were on “SNL” together. Tragically, both Belushi and Farley died of drug overdoses at 33 years of age, Fox News reported.
“I want to believe that it’s because Chris thought it was cool to be Belushi, who [was] his friend who he saw die [in 1982], that he thought it was cool to be that out of control,” postulated Schneider. “That’s my interpretation, but I don’t really know.”
However, while Murray hated the entire “SNL” class of the ’90s, according to Schneider, “the least of the hate was to me,” he claimed. “I took great pleasure in that he hated me less, because he’s my hero,” the “Home Alone 2” actor boasted.
Also at the top of the Mark Twain Prize winner’s blacklist was Sandler. “He really hated Sandler, too,” said Schneider, who didn’t know why but speculated that Murray wasn’t “really into the groove” of the “Happy Gilmore” star’s vibe.
“Sandler was just committed to it, and just like, as soon as he would get on, you could see the audience just ate him up,” the comedian said. Interestingly, Murray also notably had feuds with “SNL” co-star Chevy Chase, with whom he reportedly got into a physical altercation in 1978.
Murray’s on-set antics weren’t limited to “SNL” either. Earlier this year, the “Broken Flowers” actor was accused of “kissing” and “straddling” a female production staffer on the set of the movie “Being Mortal.”
As a result of the allegations, the filming was suspended while Murray reportedly paid the unnamed staffer $100,000, according to a report.
The comedian has since addressed the incident, claiming that he and his accuser had a “difference of opinion.”
“I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way,” Murray said during an appearance on CNBC. “As of now, we are talking, and we are trying to make peace with each other.”
He added: “The world’s different than it was when I was a little kid. Things change, times change.”
Meanwhile, actress Geena Davis recently accused the funnyman of acting inappropriately while they were on set for the 1990 film “Quick Change.”
The now-66-year-old actress detailed the pair’s audition meeting in her upcoming memoir “Dying of Politeness,” claiming that Murray allegedly greeted her in a hotel suite with a massage device that he insisted on using on her, even though she refused.
“That was bad,” Davis told the Times of London. “The way he behaved at the first meeting … I should have walked out of that or profoundly defended myself, in which case I wouldn’t have got the part.
“I could have avoided that treatment if I’d known how to react or what to do during the audition,” added the “Thelma & Louise” icon, adding that Murray later screamed at her in her trailer for being late to production.
