Fans Sent A ‘Golden Girls’ Writer Threats Over This Episode

A Golden Girls writer is admitting he got death threats over a certain episode.

The beloved sitcom ran for seven seasons from 1985 to 1992 on NBC.

While there were a lot of memorable moments throughout the show’s run, there was one episode that faced a lot of backlash. Season 6, Episode 14, “Sisters of the Bride,” featured an LGBTQ+ wedding. Monte Markham’s Clayton, the brother of Rue McClanahan’s Blanche, told Betty White’s Rose during Season 4 that he was gay. He eventually told Blanche the truth, but she didn’t immediately accept it.

“We came up with the idea, let’s bring him back. And she thinks it was a phase and he’s probably over it,” Marc Cherry, who wrote the Season 6 episode with then-writing partner Jamie Wooten, said on CBS’ Soapy podcast via Parade. “But he comes back with a guy, and the premise episode is he’s announcing they’re getting married.”

Although gay marriage was “very much illegal” at the time, Cherry explained that many gay couples had non-legally binding ceremonies. “So we do our episode and, if we weren’t the first, we were only the second show to do something about gay marriage,” he shared.

Despite the groundbreaking episode that ended with Blanche supporting her brother’s marriage, the support didn’t so much jump off the screen. “They called us up to the office a few days after the episode aired, and they said, ‘So you guys are getting death threats,’” Cherry recalled. “They literally showed us a letter that was written ‘to those f—ing Jew producers of Golden Girls.‘ To which I responded, ‘That’s weird. I’m not Jewish.’”

Due to the death threats, Cherry revealed that he and Wooten had unlisted their numbers after Wooten was called “horrible things.” He shared, “Sometimes the progress comes at a little bit of a cost to those who do it. It’s a privilege to be in this business and to be a part of those things, with the occasional death threat thrown in just for fun.”

If that episode and storyline were done today, it would have likely received much different feedback, but it just shows how much has changed over the years.