William Shatner Slams George Takei for ‘Blackening My Name’

Photo: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

If the Star Trek cast has any group chats, we’d bet that they’re blowing up right now. William Shatner, best known for his role as Captain Kirk, has addressed the fact that former co-workers from the franchise have criticized him for being unpleasant to work with. “Sixty years after some incident they are still on that track. Don’t you think that’s a little weird? It’s like a sickness,” he told the Times of London, adding that George Takei in particular “has never stopped blackening my name.” Takei, who played Lieutenant Sulu, has stated that Shatner was not a team player on set. When Shatner went to space last year, Takei stoked their public feud by calling the nonagenarian an “unfit” guinea pig.

Per Yahoo! News, Shatner recalls in his own book, Boldly Go, that the late Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) once told him that his Star Trek co-stars found him “cold and arrogant.” Shatner wrote that he was “horrified to learn this, ashamed that I hadn’t realised it.” But based on the Times interview, he appears to have changed his mind. According to the actor, he has now realized that the people who made negative comments about him were “bitter” and doing it for publicity. He doubled down on this claim on social media, tweeting on Sunday that “a handful of day players who were on set for maybe 20-30 days a year” spent decades creating “fantasies” to get noticed in the press. “Why did actors in other shows I was in not have the same issues?” he wrote. “I stupidly allowed them to do it I guess. No more!”