When most people look back at the sitcom scene from the ‘90s, there are a select few shows that always seem to be brought up first and foremost. For example, people constantly talk about shows like Friends, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Seinfeld to this day. Of course, given how popular all of those shows were and continue to be, it makes perfect sense that they get a lot of credit. However, there are lots of classic sitcoms that are arguably better than any comedy shows on television today and some of them which aired during the ‘90s deserve more credit.
Unfortunately for everyone involved in the production of the classic ‘90s sitcom Family Matters, the show doesn’t get talked about nearly enough today. Worse yet, some people think that Family Matters hasn’t aged well due to their perception of Steve Urkel in retrospect. On top of that, some Family Matters fans have even come to believe that series star Jo Marie Payton hated working on the show which begs an obvious question, is that true?
The Rumored Feud With Jaleel White
As anyone who follows the entertainment industry should know by now, there are a lot of actors in Hollywood who seem to have very delicate egos. Since so many stars seem to be very sensitive, it makes sense that there have been so many co-star feuds over the years. After all, it is very clear that there are a lot of stars who simply can’t handle it when they feel like another actor is pushing them out of the spotlight.
As longtime Family Matters fans may already know, the show was a spin-off based around the character Harriette Winslow that Jo Marie Payton first brought to life as a part of the sitcom Perfect Strangers. With that in mind, it certainly makes sense that Payton and her co-stars Reginald VelJohnson and Telma Hopkins assumed Family Matters would focus on their characters. Then, Jaleel White made his Family Matters debut several episodes into the first season and suddenly a lot of people thought the sitcom became the Steve Urkel show.
After Family Matters began to primarily focus on Steve Urkel, there were rumors that Jo Marie Payton and some of her co-stars resented that fact. When he spoke to Entertainment Weekly in 2021, Jaleel White stated that there was some reality to the rumors. "I didn't see how I was stepping on anybody's toes, I was taking anybody's shine. It's very important that I say this: I was not very well welcomed to the cast at all, okay?"
In 2010, Jo Marie Payton talked to an interviewer for the website tvseriesfinale.com. During that interview, Payton expressed her appreciation for Jaleel White while also admitting that Family Matters’ change in focus was a shock. “We were all happy to be working, and he made the show go, and we’re all still happy about it right now. We’re still laughing to the bank with the residuals. So it may have caused a little conflict, just because… it was a real shocker to all of us, you know what I mean? Because he was this little character”
Elsewhere in the same interview, Jo Marie Payton brought up the fact that she co-starred with White for many years which she cited as proof that rumors of tension between them was silly. It is also worth noting that in the aforementioned Jaleel White Entertainment Weekly interview, he stated that over time, he grew close with all of his Family Matters co-stars including Payton. “But I do think they do deserve credit at times for having helped foster a more harmonious environment by season 3, by season 4, by season 5. And we did become very much a family."
Did Jo Marie Payton Hate Starring In Family Matters?
Even though Jo Marie Payton and Jaleel White have both thrown water on the idea that there was long-lasting tension between them, that doesn’t negate the possibility that she hated starring in Family Matters. After all, it is extremely notable that Payton ceased starring in Family Matters halfway through the show’s final season which forced her character to be recast. During the aforementioned 2010 tvseriesfinale.com interview, Payton called starring in Family Matters a “blessing” and expressed her appreciation for the show’s legacy and her co-stars. However, when she took part in a 2017 Family Matters reunion, she made it clear that Payton wanted to leave Family Matters years before she did because she had grown restless in the role.
“I actually made the decision to leave the show two years before I left. I was unhappy about a lot of things; I was going through a divorce, I wasn’t happy on the show — it didn’t mean I did not want to perform as an actress or an artist. The way I explain it is that, when you’re a baker, you don’t always want to bake cakes or cookies; you want to bake pies, you want to bake bread. I wanted to do something else.”
Based on all of those quotes, it seems clear that claiming Jo Marie Payton hated starring in Family Matters would be a huge overstatement. Still, there is no doubt that Payton was over the show in the end and she even told tvseriesfinale.com that Family Matters should have ended earlier. “I think that maybe my leaving, like I said, it kind of upset a few people but like I said, you know, it was time for me to go. It was time for the show to go, I wish we could’ve gone down maybe a little bit earlier”
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