Todd Bridges says Gary Coleman’s dad tried to get him fired from Diff’rent Strokes

Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

Todd Bridges recently appeared on “The Patrick LabyorSheaux” podcast and opened up about the issues he had with his late co-star Gary Coleman’s father, Willie Coleman, during “Diff’rent Strokes.”

“The first three years, me and Gary were close,” Bridges, 60, said. “Tight like brothers. Just like brothers.”

“When his father came, everything changed,” the actor added. “It wasn’t a fun set to be on.”

Bridges explained, “Gary’s father tried to have me fired, because at 13 years old, Gary slapped me, and I slapped him back, and [he was] like, ‘We’ve got to fire him. He slapped the star!’”

However, the producers of the beloved sitcom refused to axe Bridges.

“They were like, ‘We can’t fire him, Willie. We can’t fire Willis. The show is about Willis and Arnold. We’d be done,’” Bridges recalled.

“Diff’rent Strokes,” which aired from 1978 to 1986, starred Bridges and Gary as two boys from Harlem who are taken in by a wealthy Park Avenue businessman and his daughter.

“I knew, for me, I was okay,” Bridges said about his role on the show. “Because Gary was the star, I was okay with that. But I got all the girls, so I didn’t care. The audience was predominantly young girls. When I came out, they would lose it. So yeah, you can be the star.”

Bridges noted that he and Gary — who died in 2010 — “had a great relationship” until Willie got involved.

“Willie Coleman separated us for a few years. When the show ended, I didn’t talk to Gary because I was having my own issues. Then he started having issues,” Bridges recalled.

However, the pair eventually reconnected and “became very close again.”

“Because now Gary didn’t want anything to do with his parents because he knew what they were doing to him,” Bridges stated. “And so we became very, very close.”

Gary was 42 when he died after suffering a brain hemorrhage on May 28, 2010.

The child star was estranged from both of his parents before his death. They were accused of misusing Gary’s money when he was a kid and tried to gain a conservatorship over Gary when he became an adult.

But in the 2024 Peacock documentary “GARY,” his parents claimed that they always protected Gary’s money.

When the doc came out, Bridges told PEOPLE that Gary’s mom and dad were “shady” and “did not protect their kid in any way.”