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Mindy Cohn has claimed that she and the original cast of The Facts of Life had been working on a potential reboot before a “greedy” co-star sabotaged the project.
The 58-year-old actor starred as Natalie Green on all nine seasons of the popular Eighties sitcom, which ran from 1979 to 1988 and followed a tight-knit group of friends throughout their lives, from high school onward.
Cohn said the show saw a spike in interest after it was recreated on a 2021 episode of Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience. The series featured all-star casts appearing for live recreations of popular sitcom episodes produced by Lear.
“They did one of Diff’rent Strokes and Facts of Life and after that, Norman Lear, who is no longer with us, when he was still alive, he called all of us and said, ‘I knew you guys were still popular, but holy hell. The response from the live,’” Cohn recalled on a recent episode of SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live radio show.
Lear, who died in December 2023 from a cardiac arrest, was an uncredited executive producer on The Facts of Life.
“And basically there was this round table with Octavia Spencer and Amy Poehler and Jennifer Aniston where they all said, ‘Yeah, our parents grew up with All in the Family, but we grew up with Facts of Life. That’s the Norman Lear sitcom that we love,’” Cohn continued. “And I think Norman didn’t really clock that. So when he did, he said, ‘Are you guys interested?’ And we had all never really talked about it, but we all started to consider it a little bit.”
Cohn explained that during the pandemic, she and the other three leads of the original series spoke over Zoom about the reboot, hired a writer and met with Lear.
When radio host Lewis asked what happened, Cohn responded: “What happened was not cute. There was drama.”
She went on to allege that one of her fellow castmates “went behind our backs” and attempted to make a separate deal for a different spin-off “just for herself.”
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Cohn, also known for voicing Velma Dinkley in the Scooby-Doo franchise from 2002 to 2015, said that that person’s actions “devastated” her and the rest of the cast.
“I’m just saying, it was for a 40-year friendship and sisterhood, there was a tidal wave of emotion around it,” she added, to which co-host Michael Hitchcock joked: “There’s always a greedy b****.”
“You know what, Michael Hitchcock? Greedy b****. I’ll say it,” Cohn repeated giving him a high-five. “We didn’t [speak] for a while and now we do-ish, but there’s definitely… it was an ouch.”
Confirming that the reboot is now “very dead,” she added: “A couple of people can’t move past it, don’t want to move past it. 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, not, you know, all for one, one for all. And this kind of wrecked that, which is sad. Really sad.”
Cohn declined to name the cast member who allegedly tanked the project.
The Independent has contacted Lisa Whelchel and Kim Fields for comment. A representative for Nancy McKeon was not immediately reachable.
“What it is is really sad,” Cohn concluded. “But what we were talking about before, you know, during coffee, is that some people are so desperate for either money or fame that it causes them to do things that to me, I guess, I’m still not that jaded. It shocks me. It always just kind of shocks me. You’re gonna do that over money or that over becoming famous? It always just kind of freaks me out that people will do that. Throw friendships, deep true friendships, under the bus for a dollar.”
