Mark-Paul Gosselaar hasn't kept in touch with his 'Saved by the Bell' co-star, Dustin Diamond.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar hasn't kept in touch with his Saved by the Bell co-star, Dustin Diamond.
The 44-year-old actor appeared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on Tuesday, where a viewer asked him when he had last spoken to Diamond.
"1994," Gosselaar said with a laugh as Cohen also chuckled. "It's the truth. I'm not making anything up."
Saved by the Bell: The College Years -- which starred both Gosselaar and Diamond as well as original Saved by the Bell cast members Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen -- was canceled after just one season in 1994.
Diamond -- who played lovable nerd Samuel "Screech" Powers in the beloved franchise -- has had multiple run-ins with the law since the show left the air, his most recent incident occurring on May 2016, when he was arrested after violating his parole. Earlier that year, he served three months in jail for his involvement in a bar fight on Christmas Day in 2014.
Gosselaar has been asked about his relationship with Diamond before. In 2014, he and his Franklin & Bash co-star, Breckin Meyer, appeared on HuffPost Live, when he was asked about Diamond's less-than-flattering tell-all, Behind the Bell.
"It is negative -- that I must say. Everything I've heard about his book is that it is negative, and I don't remember those things because my experience on the show was very positive," Gosselaar said.
" ... When people say, 'Oh you don't like talking about it,' it's like, 'No, I don't mind talking about it, it's just that I don't remember,'" he added. "But also everything I do remember was extremely positive. We still have friendships from it."
As for Meyer, he wasn't so kind toward Diamond.
"This guy's such a d*ck," Meyer said bluntly. "I don't know Dustin at all, but everything I read ... the Dustin Diamond thing is just so silly. It's so negative, and it always bums me out. I know everybody from the show … I know Elizabeth [Berkley], Tiffani [Thiessen], Mario [Lopez] and everyone has nothing but awesome things to say about that, except for Dustin, and I'm like, 'That might be you, bro.'"
Clearly, the love for Saved by the Bell is still going strong more than two decades after the show left the air as evidenced by the success of the themed pop-up diner in Los Angeles. ET spoke to Saved by the Bell actor Ed Alonzo -- who played diner owner Max in the series -- last April, when he said that Gosselaar and Thiessen had real feelings for one another while filming, much like their characters, Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski.
“They kinda liked each other a bit,” Alonzo recalled of the show's central couple, adding that there was “absolutely” some real-life chemistry between the co-stars. “They liked each other a lot. It was very cute. It was hand-holding and looking over.”
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