‘Star Trek’ Enemies: William Shatner Calls George Takei ‘A Very Disturbed Individual’
Former Star Trek co-stars William Shatner and George Takei have a sordid past. They have been on the outs for years. Both actors have been very vocal about their mutual disdain for each other. Takei has always said that Shatner was difficult to work with, and when Shatner was asked about him recently, he wasn’t very kind.
According to the Wrap, Shatner didn’t mince his words in an interview with Australia’s News.com.au when talking about George Takei. “He is a very disturbed individual, the truth of the matter is.”
He continued, “I don’t know him. I haven’t seen him in 25 years, I don’t know what he is up to. It is not a question that has any meaning to me. It is like asking about George Foreman or something.”
Here’s a nice picture of William Shatner and George Takei from a publicity still. pic.twitter.com/y314az11Pv
— Karla ? (@zusty) September 23, 2015
Back in June, Takei opened up on the two-decade feud between him and the Star Trek actor. Here’s where it gets a bit confusing — according to Takei there really isn’t a feud between the two, aside from William Shatner dredging up the past. During an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Takei said that there was no real tension and it was just a fabrication made up by William for publicity.
“It’s all coming from Bill. Whenever he needs a little publicity for a project, he pumps up the so-called controversy between us.” This so-called feud even played out in their own separate books. In Takei’s 1994 autobiography, titled To The Stars, George wrote that William Shatner acted like he didn’t know him while they were shooting Star Trek. He also said that Shatner changed the script for Star Trek V to diminish Takei’s role in the film. Originally, Sulu was going to command the starship.
The #StarTrek feud has lived long and prospered! @GeorgeTakei vs. @WilliamShatner http://t.co/Zdv26J41UY pic.twitter.com/i8lLFauI93
— Clipd (@watch_Clipd) June 22, 2015
Rumors started to circulate about the controversy back in 2008, when it was said that Shatner did not receive an invitation to Takei’s wedding. Shatner aired out his frustration publicly, taking to YouTube about the lack of invite to George’s wedding. Keep in mind that Shatner allegedly called Takei “psychotic” seven years ago, too.
In an online interview, Shatner said, “There’s such a sickness there. It’s so painfully obvious that there’s a psychosis there. I don’t know what his original thing about me was, I have no idea. I didn’t read his book that was printed many years ago.”
In Shatner’s 2011 book Shatner’s Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnervese and the World at Large, he addressed George’s opinion of him by saying that the actor thinks he has a “big, shiny ego!” and then goes on to say that all actors have egos, and if it’s in fact shiny then it’s because he tends to it “very carefully and lovingly.”
That said, Takei did go on record to state the real story behind Shatner’s lost wedding invitation. As it turns out they did send him a wedding invite, but it seems like it got lost in the mail, and instead of giving Takei a call about the invite, Shatner decided to assume that he wasn’t invited and aired his grievances.
As stated, Takei has gone on record to say that it was difficult to work on Star Trek with Shatner because he wasn’t a team player. He didn’t really specifically say why Shatner wasn’t a team player while working on Star Trek. If anything, he just insinuated that Shatner really liked the attention of filming a series. At the time, Takei said, “The rest of the cast all understand what makes a scene work — it’s everybody contributing to it. But Bill is a wonderful actor, and he knows it, and he likes to have the camera on him all the time.”
When Takei made these comments about William Shatner, his rep couldn’t be reached by ABC News.
[Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images]
