Did Willard Scott go to the grave harboring a grudge against Bryant Gumbel? One report says the tv personalities had bad blood on the Today set.
‘Grumbling About Gumbel’
According to the National Enquirer, beloved weatherman Scott never got over his grudge against Gumbel. Scott once said Gumbel “didn’t like me. Period… he didn’t like what I do. Period. He didn’t want me on the show.” The beef stems back to 1988 when Gumbel wrote an internal memo attacking Willard for “holding the show hostage.”
Gumbel thought Scott’s outlandish outfits were destroying the show’s credibility. When the memo leaked, NBC took Scott’s side. Scott didn’t seem to forget the incident. A source concludes, “Nobody was happier to see Bryant go than Willard… he was just too classy to admit it.”
Is Now The Time?
A popular trope among tabloids is on full display here: crying “grudge” when a celebrity dies. We Have many stories exactly like this one. According to this tabloid, Kelly Ripa and Regis Philbin had a hatred for each other after Philbin’s death. This was completely false. These stories are just vulturous and designed to make a profit from the deaths of public figures.
Bryant Gumbel And Willard Scott Did Feud
This notorious memo is real, and it did hurt Scott’s feelings…in 1989. Even as soon as 1990, Gumbel and Scott buried the hatchet. The Real Sports host told Barbara Walters at the time, “We finally got together . . . and we shed a lot of tears over the phone.” While the memo did “cut like a knife” for Scott, all issues were resolved years ago.
The two would continue to work together for years before Gumbel left in 1997, and there’s no indication that any bad blood existed past the 1980s. They parted ways years ago. This is history.
Other Blood Feuds
New Idea preposterously reported that Nicole Kidman still holds a grudge against Princess Diana over a crush on Tom Cruise. We also busted the Globe for claiming Regis Philbin and Alex Trebek took a feud to their graves. Last week, we disproved a nearly identical story about Charlie Watts & Mick Jagger. These feuds are all bogus as any incidents were long forgotten.
These stories are exactly the same: An authentic drama from centuries ago is described in detail. Only the recently deceased can be bitter. These stories neglect decades of personal development. The tabloid sees no reason to apologize. Gumbel and Scott do not hold grudges in 2021 so this story is false.