Ed O'Neill Explains Feud with 'Married With Children' Co-Star Amanda Bearse: 'I Was Angry'

The 77-year-old was in a public feud with his on screen neighbor for years, telling Modern Family co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his podcast Dinner's On Me that it all started with a cover of TV Guide during season six.

Bearse and fellow co-star David Garrison were left off the cover as they were the Married...With Children neighbors. However, the pair wanted to be on the cover and asked O'Neill to push for them, but he declined.

O'Neill elaborated on the feud to Fox News Digital, saying he mishandled a couple moments.

"If I was smarter, I would have said to the two of them, 'Let me go to [creator Ron Leavitt] and talk to him. I should have done that," he told the outlet. "But instead of that, I said, 'Hey, no. This isn't for us the actors, this is for the whole show... the grips, the makeup, the hair. This makes our show have a longer life, maybe.' That was how I looked at it. I didn't give a f--k about being on the cover, I'd say 'Why don’t you leave me off the cover and say Al is stuck at work.'"

But this isn't the only blunder O'Neill has owned up to. The 77-year-old also regrets how he lashed out at Bearse for not inviting him to her wedding to businesswoman Carrie Schenken, in 2010.

"In those days, it was a novelty, it was new," O’Neill told the outlet --- referring to a same-sex wedding.

"She didn’t invite me to the wedding. And my feelings were hurt. And when I asked her about it, she said, 'Well, it was a tough call.' And I thought, 'Are you confusing me with Al Bundy?' I didn't say that, but that's what I felt like. 'What do you mean, you think I'm a Neanderthal, or something?' So, I was angry. If I had a do-over again, I would have said, 'Amanda, all the best. It's your call, it's your wedding. But instead, I lashed out, and I said a joke, but it was a mean joke. That's my biggest regret about that, I didn’t handle that well at all, I know that."

Bearse was asked about her relationship with O'Neill during a Q&A session at a fan convention in 2020.

"Are we filming this?" she responded to a fan, but remained coy about how she feels about her former co-star. "I follow the Thumper [from Bambi] rule. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

However, she did share that, "he was not happy toward the end of the series, so that affected everything. And that's really why the show didn't really go off the air with a big finale."

O'Neill played head of the family Al Bundy alongside Katey Sagal's Peggy Bundy on the Fox series from 1987 to 1997. The show documented the Bundy's working-class life with their two children, Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino). Bearse portrayed their neighbor Marcy D'Arcy throughout all 11 seasons.