Seth Green has a Bill Murray story, too.
While appearing on Thursday’s Good Mythical Morning YouTube show, Green was faced with revealing his rudest celebrity encounter or eat gross chicken dishes. The Robot Chicken creator opted to talk, rather than taste, and recounted a long ago run-in with Murray as a young child on the Saturday Night Live set that left him in tears.
Green, now 48, was a child actor doing a spot on the NBC sketch comedy show in December 1981. For it, cast member Mary Gross interviewed kids about what they thought of Christmas. Murray, now 72, had been part of the cast from 1977 to 1980 before breaking out into movies and was back hosting.
“I’ve never actually told this story,” Green prefaced. “When I came to do that bit, I’m hanging out in the green room … sitting on the arm of a sofa… There’s a TV on.” Green, who recalled being 9 but was actually 7 if our math is right, asked to change the channel and cast member Eddie Murphy gave him the OK.
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“I come [back] and sit down, we’re watching CHiPs” when Murray entered the room. “He saw me sitting on the arm of this chair and made a big fuss about me being in his seat. And I was like, ‘That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly, ef off.’ And he was like, ‘That’s my chair.’”
Green admitted he didn’t know who Murray was until another kid from his segment noted it.
“My mom goes, ‘You know, since he’s the Bill Murray you should maybe give him his seat,'” he said. “And I go, ‘Are you this much of a jerk? You’re this rude to tell a [child] to get out of your [seat] … what is this power play?'”
Green claims Murray “picked me up by my ankles, held me upside-down… I was probably less than [4 feet tall] … He dangled me over a trash can and he was like, ‘The trash goes in the trash can.'”
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum recalled “screaming, and I swung my arms wildly, [making] full contact with his balls. He dropped me in the trash can and the trash can falls over. I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room and just cried and cried. ‘I don’t want to do this show. I can’t believe this happened. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.'”
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There was a silver lining. Murphy and Tim Kazurinsky went in to talk to him.
“They were like, ‘Hey, everybody knows Bill’s a dick,” Green said. “He’s hosting the show. He’s probably really nervous about it. You be a pro. The show must go on… So I went and did it. I went and did the bit and we’ve never seen each other since.”
A rep for Murray, who is notoriously difficult to get in touch with, did not reply to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
Green’s recollection followed comedian and SNL alum Rob Schneider‘s new comments about how Murray “hated” the cast of the show when he returned to host in February 1993.
“He’s super nice to fans,” Schneider said. “He wasn’t very nice to us. He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething.” He recalled Murray being especially hateful toward Chris Farley — “like he was just seething looking at him.”
Earlier this week, a report from Puck revealed that Murray paid a $100,000 settlement to an unidentified female member of the production for his allegedly inappropriate behavior on the set of the Aziz Ansari-directed movie Being Mortal. Murray allegedly straddled the woman and kissed her on the mouth while they both had on masks, amid COVID protocols. Murray has said that he meant it as a joke, but the woman, who was allegedly pinned down, couldn’t move and “interpreted his actions as entirely sexual.”
Last week, Geena Davis, who co-starred with Murray in 1990’s Quick Change, detailed a bad experience with him as well. She claimed Murray had insisted on using a massager on her during their first meeting, then later screamed at her in front of everyone when she was late for set because her wardrobe hadn’t arrived.
Last year, Lucy Liu detailed a hostile exchange with Murray while making 2000’s Charlie’s Angels. She said a scene had been reworked, but Murray didn’t attend the rehearsal, and he was angry when they were set and the script had been changed. She claimed he singled her out and hurled insults at her.
