The 1980s were known for big hair, iconic music, and the group of young actors we all strove to be like known as the ‘Brat Pack.’ While we may have thought the members of the group were all best friends, it turns out some didn’t get along at all. Some even hated the group’s name.
They starred in Pretty in Pink together
Many consider the young actors who starred in 1985’s The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire to be the core group that formed the ‘Brat Pack.’ This included Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. However, many other actors from other films came to be considered part of the pack. This included Matthew Broderick, John Cusack, and Jon Cryer.
Cryer and McCarthy starred side-by-side in the 1986 John Hughes film, Pretty in Pink, where the former played the eccentric nerd named Ducky, and the latter played the cool guy named Blane. In the film, they both try to earn the affection of Ducky’s best friend, Andie, played by fellow ‘Brat Pack’ member Molly Ringwald. Interestingly, the two didn’t seem to get along very well during filming.
Cryer called McCarthy a d***
Sitting on a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival were several members of the ‘Brat Pack:’ Cryer, McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, and Demi Moore. While discussing the new Brats documentary by McCarthy, Cryer shared his experience working on Pretty in Pink. “When we made Pretty in Pink, we didn’t get along because he was a d***,” Cryer said of McCarthy. Agreeing, McCarthy said, “That’s very true.”
Moore chimed in to disagree, saying, “Well I didn’t think he was a d***,” to which Cryer quipped, “Well he wasn’t a d*** to you.” Moore and McCarthy had a history together, having dated while working on their 1984 film, No Small Affair. It makes sense then that Moore felt this way about McCarthy and why her experience would be so drastically different from Cryer’s.
Following the panel, Cryer took to X (formerly Twitter) to clarify his previous comments. “Not talking out of school here, btw, he was sitting two feet away when I said this,” it reads. “And for the record, the man is a prince. We were just too young to understand each other.” It seems they were able to reconcile their differences over time.
McCarthy has come to love the name
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While McCarthy spearheaded the documentary about the ‘Brat Pack,’ he wasn’t always fond of the name. He explained that when he was younger and the group name was first coined, he found it to be a “horrible” label. However, as he got older, he came to appreciate both the moniker and the group he was considered a part of.
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“I turned 60 last year, and you start to look at your life a little differently,” he said. “I looked back at this seminal moment in my past, that I’d been dragging around for so many years, and it seemed frozen in the past. And I wanted to bring it up into my present. And by examining it, I could sort of honor it. And if I honored it, it started to turn into a blessing. And then I was fascinated by the journey.”