Jesse Metcalfe was recently asked about the rumored ‘lead female’ feuds between his former Desperate Housewives castmates.
The five recognizable faces of the comedy series — Eva Longoria, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, and Nicollette Sheridan — were plagued by reports of behind-the-scenes drama during the eight-season run of the show.
While at Southfork Experience’s Dallas Panel: The Ewing Heirs earlier this month, the 46-year-old heartthrob was asked about the offscreen conflicts.
‘Matter of fact, there’s a lot of stories about all the drama on that set between some of our lead females.
‘And I was like, I was oblivious to it, basically, you know, because I was just so thrilled to be on a show and just so in the moment,’ the actor — who is mentioned in his ex Scheana Shay’s book — shared, according to an account from People.
Jesse emphasized, ‘I was just kind of riding the wave, you know, because that show really broke me and I had everything coming at me and I was just enjoying it.’
Jesse Metcalfe was recently asked about the rumored ‘lead female’ feuds between his former Desperate Housewives castmates; pictured in July
The five recognizable faces of the drama series – Eva Longoria, Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, and Nicollette Sheridan – were plagued by reports of behind-the-scenes drama during the eight-season run of the show
The Hollywood hunk added, ‘I was just happy to have a job. I went through an entire pilot season, I didn’t book anything, and I tested for Desperate Housewives, which was a recast, right at the end of that pilot season and ended up booking it.’
In the ABC show, Eva’s character Gabrielle Solis had an affair with her gardener, Jesse’s John Rowland.
In a November 2023 Armchair Expert podcast interview, she blamed the murmurs of a ‘feud’ on sexism.
‘I remember, even back then, it was a narrative about women because there were all these shows about men on the air, and nobody was like “They’re fighting!”‘ she said.
And she noted that her costars were more familiar with the industry culture.
‘They all had such a better handle on fame, on that narrative, y’know, I’m like. “You guys, they’re saying we’re fighting!” and they’re like, “Yeah, well that’s just a narrative they do on women because we’re over 40 in a television show.”‘
The Texas-bred actress added that she knew the show was a success when it was spoofed on Saturday Night Live.
She recalled, ‘I remember when I hosted SNL… and Tina Fey was like, “Let’s spoof you guys fighting. And I was like, “Okay, that’d be funny.” It was a thing, cuz if it made a skit on SNL, then you knew you were in pop culture. You’ve arrived.’
Jesse and Eva portrayed on-screen love interests; pictured in 2004
In the ABC show, Eva’s character Gabrielle Solis had an affair with her gardener, Jesse’s John Rowland
L-R Marcia, Nicollete, Felicity, Teri, and Eva pictured at the Golden Globes in 2005, where they won Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy
And like Jesse, Eva brushed off the gossip about on-set clashes.
She noted that the grueling work schedule didn’t allow for much time to dissect the headlines.
‘We were working so hard. Anything that happened outside of the show, we were like “What?”
‘We never could come up for air to really get outside of ourselves. We were only on this set,’ she stressed.
Looking back, the Searching for Spain star shared, ‘I remember that noise being outside of us. We were in such a bubble with our crew and each other. We could only talk to each other about, like, “Doesn’t this suck?”
‘All that stuff of, “we’re fighting,” even like “Number one show, you’re amazing,” good and bad — it didn’t penetrate because we were working and I was exhausted. We would work 18-hour days, [and] we would have photo shoots on the weekends.’
