Drew Barrymore Addresses Lucy Liu and Bill Murray’s ‘Charlie’s Angels’ Clash

Drew Barrymore is siding with her Charlie’s Angels co-star Lucy Liu. The actress-turned daytime TV host, in a new interview with Dan Pellegrino on The Drew Barrymore Show, addressed the former Lucy Liu and Bill Murray drama that happened while on set over 20 years ago. She says she remains supportive of Liu now, just as she supported her then. 

Liu recalled the experience on a July episode of the L.A. Times‘ Asian Enough podcast. The actress, who portrayed Alex in the popular 2000 film, said Murray (who played Bosley in the movie) showed up on set one day and started “hurling insults” at her while they were reworking a scene.  The interaction led to a heated verbal altercation. “You know, if you confront me, I will attack and that’s exactly what happened because it was unjust and it was uncalled for and some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it,” Liu said on the podcast. “So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have and nor did I.”

Barrymore clarified some of what happened that day on her show. “What really happened was Bill was just in a— you know, comedians can be a little dark sometimes, and he just came in in a bad mood,” she explained. “And what you have to know is how much Lucy stood up for herself and that was the great thing that came out of an unfortunate circumstance. She literally said, ‘I do not accept that kind of behavior from you.’ And we all supported her and backed her up and we moved forward.” 

“In the workplace, it is so important that we respect each other and if you don’t feel you’re being respected to speak up for yourself and to have people around you say, ‘I back this person,’” she continued. “But I respected her then, I respect her now. I’m proud of us as a team and a company that we didn’t tiptoe on the eggshells. We dealt with it right then and there, we were strong, and we moved forward and we didn’t accept anything less moving forward.”

After the situation, Liu says she holds no hard feelings toward Murray over what happened. “I’ve seen him since then at an SNL reunion and he came up to me and was perfectly nice,” she said on the episode, “But I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.”