Sally Struthers claims ‘passive-aggressive’ Betty White ‘fat-shamed’ her

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The late Betty White might have been a favourite of many but Sally Struthers revealed that they were neither pals nor confidantes.

The All in the Family actress says the late Golden Girls star once “fat-shamed” her in front of a group of people — over a plate of cookies, no less.

“I have to say, now that she’s gone, I want to talk about Betty White for just a moment,” Struthers said on a recent episode of the podcast Let’s Talk About That! With Larry Saperstein and Jacob Bellotti.

“I know everybody loves her — they loved her so much they signed petitions to get her to guest-host Saturday Night Live — I know all that,” she began, before adding, “I didn’t have such a great experience with her.”

The 77-year-old called The Proposal actress a “very passive-aggressive woman,” explaining how the incident took place while she and others were at White’s home to discuss the pilot of a new game show.

“She asked her housekeeper to bring in a plate of whatever to us while we were all sitting and talking about what was working about the game show and what wasn’t working,” Struthers recounted.

“A plate was set in the middle and it was cookies, I think,” the Man on the Inside actress continued.

“So I reach for a cookie and she said in front of everyone, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear. You don’t need a cookie.’

Saperstein and Bellotti gasped in response to Struthers’ story.

“Totally fat-shamed me in front of the rest of the people in the room, and I thought, ‘Gosh, that’s not nice,’” Struthers added.

“Well, I’m sorry you had that experience with her,” Bellotti told the actress.

White was best known for her portrayal as the sweet but dim-witted Rose Nyland on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy, though she has four others (two for her supporting role as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; one for Outstanding Guest Actress on The John Larroquette Show; and her last one in 2010 for her aforementioned SNL hosting stint).

She died in 2021, less than a month before her 100th birthday.

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While Struthers’ experience with White wasn’t great, she did recall lovely memories with her Golden Girls co-star Bea Arthur, who guest-starred on All in the Family.

“I would run into her at the supermarket and she would trash everyone we ever knew,” she said about the star, who died in 2009 at the age of 86.

“We would stand in the aisle and say, ‘What do you think about so and so?’ (And she’d say,) ‘She’s a f***ing a**hole.’ People in the store were like, ‘What’s going on in aisle five?’ I loved how filthy she was.”

She added: “She was a big deal. I loved her.”