Shelley Long was noticeably absent when several of her Cheers costars reunited at the Emmy Awards in 2024.
Long has always had a contentious relationship with the NBC sitcom that made her a household name. Amid rumors of tension with costar Ted Danson, Long quit Cheers in 1987, even after winning an Emmy and two Golden Globes for playing Diane Chambers in the NBC sitcom’s first five seasons.
There have been endless rumors over the years about why Long left the show. For his part, Danson admitted on the “Smartless” podcast in 2024 that he and Long genuinely didn’t get along when cameras were not rolling.
“My first reaction to Shelley while we were auditioning was, ‘Oh, no. No. That’s a bad, bad idea,’” he recalled.
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Recalling that his first interactions with Long were “horrible,” Danson explained: “I don’t know, we were so different. Our styles, our approach, our everything is really different, which is why I think it worked because it was like this fair fight.”
“It was hard for us sometimes to be in the room together,” he conceded. “But when we started working, it was just fantastic because you’d smack her and she’d smack you back harder. She was just brilliant.”
Long conceded in a 1995 interview that she was disappointed that Cheers — and her exit from the show — sometimes overshadowed other aspects of her career.
“I’ve never regretted the decision [to leave Cheers],” she insisted. “I’ve been annoyed by the comments and the constant questions of, ‘Do you regret? Do you ever regret?’ … I don’t regret it. I’ve said it over and over again.”
Long explained that her primary reason for leaving Cheers at the height of the show’s popularity was that she “sincerely” wanted more time with her family.
“I’ll forever treasure [that time with my family],” she added.
Long was married to Ken Solomon early in her career, before tying the knot with securities broker Bruce Tyson in 1981. Tyson and Long share one daughter, Juliana, born in March 1985. (Long and Tyson divorced in 2004.)
Long kept busy after leaving Cheers, appearing in a string of successful movies with The Money Pit, Troop Beverly Hills and The Brady Bunch Movie into the 1990s.
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She made recurring appearances in Modern Family as Ed O’Neill’s onscreen ex-wife, DeDe Pritchett. Long appeared in eight Modern Family episodes over a nine-year period. Her character was killed off in a memorable 2018 episode as a way to prove “death is a giant part of the family experience,” according to Modern Family cocreator Steve Levitan.
“[DeDe was] directly involved with three of our characters and she touched everybody’s life in some interesting way,” the producer explained at the time. “It seemed like the right character to put everybody through something. She seemed like the right character because she so directly affects so many of our characters.”
Speaking to ABC News in 2017, Long reflected on entering a new phase of her career after playing romantic leads for so long.
“There just aren’t a lot of roles in general, roles for someone more specific to my age,” she noted. “I’m kind of in the middle, I don’t exactly look like a grandmother, but I don’t look like a leading lady in the more traditional sense … There are a lot of young grandmothers out there.”
She kept acting into the 2020s, though Long eventually retreated from public life following the release of her 2021 movie The Cleaner.
When Emmy producers organized a Cheers cast reunion at the annual gala in September 2024, Long declined to take part with former costars Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Perlman, John Ratzenberger and George Wendt. Grammar later admitted to The New York Post in January 2024 that he was disappointed that Long chose not to attend.
“I was sorry Shelley didn’t make it,” the Frasier actor said. “But the other guys, it was great to see them.”
Long is still occasionally spotted by photographers in Los Angeles, but has chosen to live a quiet life away from the spotlight in recent years.
