Henry Winkler has finally given fans more details on the reason he and Tom Hanks have had an ongoing feud for over 30 years.
The pair's falling out dates back to the 1980s after the pair were meant to work on the buddy cop film Turner & Hooch together.
Winkler, 78, had been due to direct the 1989 film in which Hanks, 67, starred as a detective solving the murder of his former partner and caring for his dog.
However, relations between the two men soured during filming and Winkler was ultimately sacked from the project, and he has finally opened up about what may have sparked it all.
Winkler appeared on a recent episode of the How To Fail podcast where she spoke about his firing from the movie.
The Happy Days star - who formerly played Arthur 'The Fonz' Fonzarelli - revealed that he did "11 weeks of preparation" before the directing job ultimately went to Roger Spottiswoode.
He added: "I knew this dog. This slobbery mastiff and I became friends. The star did not become my friend."
When asked if he meant Hanks, Winkler joked: "I probably do."
The circumstances around his falling out with Hanks have remained shrouded in mystery ever since, but Winkler shed some light on a fan interaction he believes started the animosity.
He explained: "We were in Carmel, this little seaside wonderful town on the coast of California, looking for a location, and a woman comes, honest to God, comes running out of a shop and says ‘Henry, Fonz! Oh, my god!’ and I say, ‘And, of course, you know Tom Hanks.'
"The director of photography, when I was fired 13 days into filming, said, ‘I knew that this was going to happen, on that day in Carmel.'"
Winkler first spoke about the feud back in 1993, when he told People: "Let’s just say I got along better with Hooch than I did with Turner."
It was clear that almost three decades later, their relationship hadn't thawed, as Winkler's Happy Days co-star Ron Howard said in 2020 that it was "disappointing" that the two of them did not get along.
Howard told The Guardian at the time: "I’m friends with them both, and both men felt compelled to come to talk to me about it.
"It was just one of those unfortunate things where they really had a working style that did not fit."
He added: "I know it was painful for both of them, and I was able to lend an ear, if not offer any solutions."
Winkler did claim in 2020 that the scale of the feud had been greatly exaggerated and that he and Hanks are "cordial" when they see each other in person, telling TMZ: "I don’t have a feud with Tom Hanks. What everybody says and what is true are two different things."
He told Andy Cohen in 2022: "I ran into Tom and Rita [Wilson] at an award show just before the pandemic, and it was very warm. It’s all very cordial."
Hanks has never publicly addressed the issue himself.
