Kelsey Grammer revealed what caused the feud between himself and Cheers costar Ted Danson which led to a feud where the men went 30 years barely speaking.
“It got a little blown out of proportion. There really wasn’t an argument. It was at a time in my life when I was actually going through a lot of self-doubt, self-loathing, honestly,” Kelsey, 69, told the New York Post on January 31, while promoting his new movie Wish You Were Here.
“It was when I was drinking a lot. Ted had just come up and said, ‘You know, I’m kind of mad at you that sometimes you don’t show up ready to go.’ And I said, ‘OK, I respect that.’ And that actually was sort of it,” he explained.
The Frasier star added, “Now, maybe what happened for Ted was he stepped away from what might have been a better friendship. Maybe he just had to protect himself. I don’t really know. But, I said, ‘Thanks.’ We were fine with that.”
Ted, 77, starred as bartender Sam Malone for all 11 seasons of the NBC comedy Cheers, which premiered in 1982. Kelsey joined the show in season 3 as Dr. Frasier Crane and got his own spinoff the same year the Cheers ended in 1993.
Kelsey has been sober since 1996, after years of battling cocaine and alcohol addictions, which occurred during the time he was filming Cheers.
The two men revealed their beef for the first time during Ted and Cheers costar Woody Harrelson‘s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast in October 2024, when Kelsey made an appearance.
“This isn’t self-deprecating, but it’s — I feel like I got stuck a little bit with you during the Cheers years. I have a memory of getting angry at you once,” Ted told Kelsey, although he didn’t elaborate on what set him off.
Kelsey agreed that there was a moment where things went wrong, replying, “Yeah, you came and told me that one day.”
Ted continued, “And it’s stuck in both of our memories. But I feel like, f–k, I don’t know. I missed out on the last 30 years of Kelsey Grammer and I feel like it’s my bad, my doing, and I almost feel like apologizing to you … I apologize to you and me that I sat back, you know, and didn’t … and I really do apologize.”
Kelsey thanked the A Man on the Inside star for his apology, adding, “I truly wish we’d spent some more time together.”
“I know squat about you really, compared to the body of your work,” Ted said of Kelsey, revealing how he didn’t know much about his former costar’s personal life. However, Ted praised Kelsey’s career, saying, “It’s just astounding. Theater, film, books, the works.”
Kelsey recalled an anecdote about Ted, telling him, “You said something wonderful to me, though, too, that I’ve always, I quote to other people. When I turned 40, you came up and you said, ‘You know what it means, don’t you? Now that you’re 40, it means you’re finally worth having a conversation with.’”
