Lucy Liu Sets the Record Straight on Charlie's Angels Dispute With Bill Murray

Lucy Liu shared her side of the story about what she said went down on the set of the 2000 movie Charlie's Angels. She said Bill Murray used language that was "inexcusable and unacceptable."

By Lindsay Weinberg Jul 27, 2021 8:58 PMTags
Watch: Jennifer Lawrence Freaks Over Bill Murray

Bosley and his angels might not have as tight a bond as previously thought.

Lucy Liu finally addressed rumors that she and her Charlie's Angels co-star, Bill Murray, didn't get along on set. 

Twenty years after she played crime-fighter Alex, Liu opened up on the L.A. Times' Asian Enough podcast about how she "stood up for myself" after Murray started to "hurl insults" on the set of the 2000 film.

She recalled that the cast started to rehearse one particular scene that took place in the agency. She said the cast had taken the weekend to rework the scene, and Murray was not able to come because he had to attend "some family gathering."

"So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid," she shared, noting that she "had the least amount of privilege in terms of creatively participating at that time."

She alleged, "As we're doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won't get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on. I was, like, 'Wow, he seems like he's looking straight at me.'"

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Liu said she "couldn't believe" his comments were directed toward her, "because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time?"

As she put it, "I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, 'I'm so sorry. Are you talking to me?' And clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication."

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According to the Why Women Kill star, things took a turn and she decided to speak out.

"Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it," she said. "So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don't regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there's no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have."

Liu later added, "I'm not going to sit there and be attacked... I don't want to be that person that is not going to speak up for myself and stand by the only thing that I have, which is my dignity and self-respect.""

She said she has "nothing against" Murray "at all." In fact, Liu has seen him since then at a Saturday Night Live reunion. "He came up to me and was perfectly nice," she recalled. 

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E! News has reached out to Murray's attorney and has not heard back. According to Entertainment Weekly, Murray addressed his rumored clash with Liu in a 2009 interview with The Times of London, saying, "Look, I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional and working with me… When our relationship is professional, and you're not getting that done, forget it."

It seems the alleged on-set incident left a lasting impression on their fellow cast and crew members.

"I remember years later, maybe even decades later, some crew members that I didn't even know at the time came up to me on other sets and told me that they were there at the time and they were really grateful that I did that," Liu shared. 

However, the Elementary actress said it was "incredible" to watch how the story about their feud got "turned around" in the press more recently.

"They automatically thought that the woman was the difficult one," she reflected. "But I didn't understand how it got flipped when I had nothing to do with instigating it or creating that platform of confrontation or anxiety. So even though it's been decades, it's something that obviously I remember very intimately and have not forgotten."