Mr. Belding Was Irate After Being Left Out of the ‘Saved By the Bell’ Reunion
Dennis Haskins kicked off a wave of Saved by the Bell nostalgia in the 2000s when he became the first cast member to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. But despite Haskins’ irrefutable place in SBTB legend, the hottest members of the cast froze out Haskins and Dustin “Screech” Diamond when they reunited for a People magazine cover story in 2009.
The actor who played Mr. Belding was furious. Haskins contacted the Detroit News — Variety not taking your calls, Dennis? — to vent his frustrations. “I earned the right to be there. If anybody deserved to be on that cover, it was Dennis Haskins,” he ranted, per Vulture. “I want people to know it was not my choice not to be there, because I would have been there. It hurts my feelings, but I’ll live.”
He continued to gripe to Parade. “They didn't even talk about Mr. Belding,” he complained. “That's still not the seven of us. Whatever you want to talk about, that show was six students and the principal. They were the heart of the show.”
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A gossip blog whispered that the Saved by the Bell kids only agreed to do the photo shoot if Haskins and Diamond were excluded from the festivities. No word on what the cast had against Haskins, although Tiffani Thiessen seemed less than thrilled when he surprised her on the Today Show. Awkward.
The rejection of Diamond was easier to understand since he was shopping his tell-all book, Behind the Bell, at the time. According to Vulture, Gotham Books had just rejected Diamond’s manuscript as unpublishable since “it contained many assertions about cast members from Saved by the Bell that Gotham felt were unverifiable.”
An outfit called Transit Pub eventually rolled the dice on Diamond’s sketchy book, a series of accusations that Diamond later tried to walk back by blaming ghostwriters or claiming he didn’t have final say over what got included. Whoever’s at fault, it’s understandable why Zack, Slater and Kelly Kapowski didn’t want Screech around after he threw Bayside High’s finest under the bus.
In fact, the actors went to great lengths to exclude Diamond. Check out the 1989 inset on that People cover — not only was Diamond not asked back, but they Photoshopped him out of the original cast as well.
Haskins was more forgiving. In a 2015 Reddit AMA, fans asked about his reaction to Diamond’s sleazy book. “I worked with Dustin Diamond from when he was 11 years old until 20. Dustin and I actually became a team on The New Class,” he wrote, ignoring the question. “Dustin will always have a special place with me.”
