Heather Locklear has clarified remarks she made about “First Wives Club” costar James Naughton, after he pulled out pages of the movie’s script to defend behavior which she called “gross” in a recent podcast.
While appearing on Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s “Fake Doctors, Real Friends” podcast earlier this week, Locklear reflected on some of her earlier roles — where she spilled on what wound up being a quick cameo in the 1996 film starring Bette Midler, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn.
Locklear played Mary, the mistress and new wife of Stockard Channing’s ex-husband Gil, played by Naughton. The two appear in a funeral scene for Channing’s character, whose suicide sets in motion the events of the movie.
“I did ‘The First Wives Club’ and there was a couple of scenes that they cut out of me and then the only scene I had had no lines and one of the actors, we were at a funeral, and he was supposed to take his hand and touch my breast and they show that,” she said, not referring to Naughton by name, but clearly talking about him.
“He actually touched more than, it was kind of gross,” she continued. “So I said, ‘Can you just take my name off the credits since now I don’t have any lines?’ So it was creditless.”
“He doesn’t grab it, he actually outlines my areola with his finger,” she added. “It didn’t say that in the script. I was like ‘[gasps],’ I’m so glad they’re following his hand down [with the camera] because my face, my mouth is fallen open and I don’t believe it and don’t do it again. One take and let’s go.”
The only footage of the scene is dubbed in Italian, below:
Locklear claims she filmed “bigger scenes” for the movie, but the funeral scene was the only one that made the finished film. “There was more to the part,” she said, “I don’t know, maybe I was bad in it.”
After her comments made headlines, calling it a #MeToo moment, Naughton’s rep released a statement saying what was on the screen was also in the script — while sharing a photo of the script in an attempt to prove his point.
“James remembers shooting this scene as written in the script,” his rep told Yahoo. “He completely understands that Heather would have felt uncomfortable shooting this scene, as he felt uncomfortable as well.”
In the script page also given to Yahoo, it reads, “Despite the grave facade, we see that Gil is subtly using his finger to feel Mary’s breast. Mary smiles at him shyly.”
After seeing Naughton’s response to her comments, Locklear took to Instagram to clarify a few things.
“Oh no, I didn’t mean James Naughton did anything wrong,” she wrote. “The script called for him to touch my breast. I was surprised that he circled my areola.”
“We had not discussed the scene prior to filming,” she added. “To be clear, I was never upset with James, just surprised. Love you James.”
Now, after the #MeToo movement, a lot of productions have started using intimacy coordinators to specifically avoid situations like this. The coordinators job is to ensure all parties involved in any intimate or sexual scenes are on the same page and comfortable with everything being filmed.
