Moonlighting was stricken with classic Hollywood star ego clashes
When Moonlighting appeared first hit the airwaves one of its stars, Bruce Willis, was a virtual unknown. Another, Cybill Shepherd, was a famed supermodel, actress, and celebrity. At first, their off-screen relationship was cordial and professional. It deteriorated rapidly. With the success of the show, Willis became a star, and as his fame grew his ego grew with it. Squabbles on the set between the stars of the show grew with each succeeding season. Some were over creative differences, others were petty ego clashes. Willis demanded a dressing room equal in size to that of his costar. Shepherd developed the reputation of a classic Hollywood diva, threatening to fire anyone involved in the production who dared to tell her no about anything. After just the second season of the show, Shepherd frequently used the “my way or I quit” ruse, getting her way time after time.
By the end of that season the creator of the successful program, Glenn Caron, was the target of her wrath, and he left the program rather than suffer the ignominy of dismissal. Rumors of an off-camera intimate relationship gone wrong swirled on the set and in the tabloids, never confirmed by either star. Filming incidents increased in intensity, growing from arguments to objects flying across the set propelled by one star in the direction of the other. The program lasted five years in first-runs, ending in 1989, and by the end of the production Willis and Shepherd weren’t speaking to each other, on-set or off, except where their scripts required them to do so. In 2005 Cybill Shepherd told an interviewer, “…it had gotten to where we just hated each other.” Both actors have had stressful relationships with fellow performers during other productions throughout their careers.