14 DAY TRIAL // As “Saved by the Bell,” that quintessential ‘90s Saturday morning TV show, comes back in the attention of the media through Dustin Diamond's tell-all book “Behind the Bell,” one of the actors of the original cast is stepping forward to shed some light on the situation.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar was one of the main actors on the show, playing teen heartthrob Zack Morris, and he came forward on Huffpost Live to say that Diamond's view on this is very negative. “Everything I've heard about his book is that it's very negative, and I don't remember those things. My experience on the show was very positive.”
Diamond's book is now being turned into a movie by Lifetime called “The unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story” and Gosselaar wanted to tell people that this version of the story is not necessarily the truth.
Gosselaar was present for the interview with “Franklin & Bash” co-star Breckin Meyer and the actor wasn't as reserved in his statements. The actor, in fact, had some very harsh words for Diamond, who played Screech on the original show.
Meyer came out blasting when he said “This guy is such a [expletive].I don't know Dustin at all, but ... the Dustin Diamond thing is just so silly. It's just so negative and it always bums me out.” He was careful to add that Diamond's speech was hateful and probably false.
As an example, he points out that Dustin's adult tape was also a hoax, “That's not him![on tape]. Screech is not packing that. Get the hell out of here. He doesn't have six Beldings beneath him. There's no [expletive] way. You're full of [expletive], Dustin,” the actor concluded as people in the studio began laughing.
Finally, he reminds us all that “I know Elizabeth [Berkley] and Tiffani [Thiessen] and Mario [Lopez] and everyone has nothing but like awesome [things] to say about that except for Dustin. I'm like, ‘That might be you, bro.’”
Diamond's account of the story does have some negative aspects to present, as he claims to have seen them on set between 1989 and 1994 when the show ran on air. He claims that drugs were always present on set, “I could smell a certain ‘smoke,’ wafting from the crack” from under his castmates' dressing rooms.
He also claimed that Gosselaar used steroids to bulk up for his role in the sequel “Saved by the Bell: The College Years” by saying that “He suddenly exploded with manliness, loading 25 pounds of muscle on his once-scrawny frame in, oh, about a month.”
He also insinuated that the actors would often hook up on set when the cameras were not rolling. Finally, he pointed some blaming fingers at his former co-stars by saying that Mario Lopez is a serial womanizer and that Thiessen slept with guys in the industry to help her career.
The movie “The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story” is scheduled to premiere on September 1. Gosselaar claims that he had nothing to do with the production of the movie.