Nearly twenty-four years after “Family Matters” ended, Jo Marie Payton recalls a peculiar incident that supposedly happened on set.
Previously, the actress who portrayed Harriette Winslow spoke out about working with co-star Jaleel White, who portrayed Steve Urkel, and how things allegedly turned ugly while filming the Season 9 episode “Original Gangsta Dawg.” In the episode, White, 45, doubled as Urkel’s gangster cousin OGD.
“There was one time he actually wanted to physically fight me,” the 71-year-old alleged to Entertainment Tonight. “[There was a scene] where I said we can’t do that, standards and practices will not let that pass, it’s not gonna happen.”
The TV mother asserted that the young actor’s attitude on set while portraying the character may have been affected by his rise to stardom.
“He wanted to do it anyway,” she said. “He said something about, ‘She must want to melee.’ I said, ‘What’s a melee?’ He said, ‘a fight.’ I turned around – if he wanna fight, I would. [Co-star] Darius [McCrary] grabbed me. I was gonna whip his behind.”
Thinking back on the alleged incident, Payton acknowledged that White was “just a kid” at the time. Consequently, she does not give him “all the credit” for his alleged behavior.
“I give some of those adults credit too,” said Payton. “Letting him run wild and do whatever he wanted to do, thinking he can say what he wants to say, you know, and hurt people’s feelings and all that.”
