The facts of greed.
Mindy Cohn claimed that one of her “Facts of Life” co-stars — seemingly either Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields or Nancy McKeon — sabotaged a possible revival of the beloved ’80s sitcom.
The 58-year-old actress explained on SiriusXM’s “Jeff Lewis Live” last week that TV legend Norman Lear approached the foursome about a revival after the success of the 2021 “Live in Front of a Studio Audience” special, where stars like Jennifer Aniston, Gabrielle Union and Kathryn Hahn acted out scenes from “The Facts of Life.”
Cohn, Whelchel, 61, and Fields, 55, made cameos in the special. McKeon, 58, did not participate.
“He called all of us and said, ‘I knew you guys were still popular, but holy hell. The response from the ‘Live,’ ” Cohn recalled of Lear, who died at age 101 in Dec. 2023.
“We had never really talked about it, but we all started to consider it a little bit,” Cohn said. “We got into talks. We hired a writer, and the four of us got together on Zooms — this was during COVID — and we had meetings with Norman about it.”
Cohn, who played Natalie Green on the sitcom, said the plans for the revival fell apart.
“What happened was not cute,” she said. “There was drama.”
Cohn explained: “One of the girls … went behind our backs and tried to make a separate deal for a spinoff just for herself and devastated the rest of us.”
“I’m just saying… for a 40-year friendship and sisterhood, there was tidal wave of emotion around it,” the actress added.
Cohn wouldn’t reveal which cast member ruined the rival – but she did refer to her as a “greedy bitch.”
When asked if the cast still talks to the unnamed cast member, Cohn replied, “We didn’t for a while. Now we do-ish. It was an ouch.”
She also said there’s “no desire to ever work together” and that the revival is “very dead.”
“A couple of people can’t move past it, don’t want to move past it,” Cohn explained. “We are not as united, let me put it that way. We were united for 40 years over not talking about each other, not doing dirty.. You know, ‘All for one, one for all,’ and this kind of wrecked that, which is sad. Really sad.”
Cohn reiterated that she won’t say which of her co-stars caused the drama, but she did insinuate that their identity can be figured out by going on her Instagram and seeing who from the cast she doesn’t post.
“What it is is it’s really sad,” said Cohn. “Some people are so desperate for either money or fame that it causes them to do things that to me… I guess I’m not that jaded. It shocks me.”
She went on, “You’re gonna do that over money? Or that over becoming famous? It always freaks me out that people will do that. Throw friendships — deep, true friendships — under the bus for a dollar.”
Fields, 55, didn’t appear on “The Drew Barrymore Show” with the other three cast members earlier this year. Cohn, Whelchel and McKeon reunited for Drew Barrymore’s birthday episode, but they didn’t address Fields’ absence at the time.
Barrymore, 49, told the trio that the sitcom influenced her life.
“What I was learning was to be a strong, independent female who could take care of themselves and value female friendship and know that there was someone there watching out for them,” she said. “I wanted so badly to be with you guys, and you gave me a blueprint that made my life feel better to me in every sense of the word.”
“The Facts of Life,” a spinoff of “Diff’rent Strokes,” aired on NBC from 1979 to 1988.
The show followed housemother Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) and four young women (played by Cohn, Whelchel, Fields and McKeon) at an all-girls boarding school in New York.
Rae died at the age of 92 in Aug. 2018.
