On the newest episode of the Allison Interviews podcast with host and entertainment journalist, Allison Kugel, sits down with actor Todd Bridges. During the interview Todd discusses maintaining his sobriety for 32 years, fighting with producers to get Black crew members and a Black director on the Diff’rent Strokes set, threatening to quit Diff’rent Strokes over Muhammad Ali, LA racism in the 1980s/90s, surviving sexual abuse in Hollywood, how Gary Coleman suffered on the Diff’rent Strokes set, and more. On the media not reporting enough on his sobriety:   “It’s not talked about enough. The media has a bad habit when it comes to me, of always putting out the stuff I did  years ago, first, and not even mentioning that I’m 32 years sober. It’s making people feel like I’m just out there running amuck and I’m not. I’ve been sober for 32 years. The mistake I don’t make is relapsing. I won’t make that mistake again. Black actors and white actors are treated in two different ways. Charlie Sheen, he’s back on some TV show. And I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ I’m back on a show too (Comedy Central’s Everybody Still Hates Chris), but when they talk about Charlie Sheen, they don’t bring up his troubles, when they’re interviewing him. They first talk about what he’s accomplished. With me, they start off with the troubles before they bring up my accomplishments.” On how he finally got sober three decades ago: “I couldn’t be the same guy anymore. I got tired of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and getting the same results. I remember when I was in the rehab program, and this light came over me and God said, ‘I’m going to put people in your path and you just listen to what they tell you, do what they tell you to do and don’t question it, and you will be sober for a long time.’ That’s exactly what happened and I finally got it. You have to surrender to win the program. That’s tough for people who don’t like to surrender.” “God healed my heart. He healed a lot of pain that I was going through, from being molested as a child and from having an alcoholic father, and from years of getting pulled over by the police every day when I was just going to work. When I moved to the San Fernando Valley, I’d be riding my bike with my white friends, and [the police] would pull me over and take my bike, and tell me that I stole my [own] bike. And if any kid there could afford his own bike, it was me! Going through all of that, I developed a chip on my shoulder and I became angry with everything around me, because I couldn’t believe how you could become so successful in this country and still be treated like dirt.” On being a famous teenager in the 1980s: “It was exciting, because you were well known. But then also you had a target on your back. And it was a lot different living in southern California then it was living in San Francisco. In San Francisco everyone got along and nobody cared what color you were. When I moved to Los Angeles, my first experience with racism was when we were buying a house in Culver City. My mom (the late actress, Betty Bridges) sounded like a white lady on the phone, so they were like, ‘Oh yes, Mrs. Bridges. Your credit checks out and you have the money. We have a house for you and it’s perfect.’ And we go there and they see all these Black people with big afros (laughs), and they were like, ‘Oh no, we don’t have any houses for sale here anymore.’ My mom got one of her white friends to go in, and they actually got the house for us. It was hard to handle as a kid, being famous and still dealing with that.” On him an Gary Coleman fighting to get Black crew members on Diff’rent Strokes: “Me and Gary Coleman were the only Black people on that show at that time, and we had no Black crew members. Then I started speaking up and they finally got Black crew members, and we got a Black director, finally. And that was making us feel a lot better, because we had people around us who looked like us.” On pedophilia in Hollywood and surviving early sexual abuse: “I was a victim of it. But I never witnessed it [with others]. It came from a good family friend who was my publicist. My mom didn’t want me to be alone with this guy, but my dad was like, ‘He’s fine. What’s wrong?’ And back then, mothers usually listened to what their husbands said. And that was the guy who did me wrong. It’s very important today that you watch who’s around your children. You don’t leave them alone with any strangers. It’s something I am very hyper-[vigilant] about, but it protected my kids. This is something that destroys kids. It took me years to get over that.” “What they do is, they groom the mom to get to the kid. And usually, if the mom is greedy and also trying to get that life for herself, then that’s what’s going to happen. You’ve got to be there with your kid, and you have to watch people. You can’t leave them alone with anybody.” On threatening to quit Diff’rent Strokes when producers wanted his character, Willis, to insult Muhammad Ali:  “One thing I will say about my mom is, I remember one time they wanted me to insult Muhammad Ali on an episode of Diff’rent Strokes, and that’s one of my idols. And I was like, ‘I’m not gonna say this. I’m not going to insult my hero.’ And [the producers] were like, ‘Well, then we’ll fire you.’ My mom said, ‘Go ahead and fire him for it. That’s fine. We don’t need this job that bad. I’m not going to mess up his integrity to insult somebody he loves.’ Then one of the other producers came over and said, ‘No, he doesn’t have to say it if he doesn’t want to say it.’ But you have to keep your integrity in a situation like that.” On his late Diff’rent Strokes co-star Gary Coleman: “[Gary Coleman’s parents] valued money more than Gary Coleman, and that’s what happened to him. They valued money way more. We all knew right away. Gary had a kidney transplant, and he was back at work two weeks later. It shouldn’t have been like that, and it was terrible. He was throwing up and all that. He was under so much stress that his body rejected the kidney. He shouldn’t have been at work at all. It was all about money. [His parents] both stopped working and they’re living off the kid. You can’t just give up your whole lives for your kid that’s in the business. My parents both had jobs. My mom was a big manager. She taught Nia Long, Regina King, Lamont Bentley, Sanaa Lathan. My mom trained all those people in her academy. She trained all those people and made them stars.” On possibly rebooting Diff’rent Strokes: “We’re trying to get that back to TV. We are working on something right now. There are no traditional families on TV right now. We’re trying to create that again, and I think we can. TV is a wonderful tool, and if you do the right show then parents can watch again with their kids. They can enjoy it and learn lessons, and then talk with their kids about the lessons. Right now there’s too much going on in shows; political… and that’s not what people want in shows. They want to watch shows to enjoy it and not for it to be politicized. It’s got to go back to the old style of television.” On Diff’rent Strokes paving the way for others Black actors and television shows: “It’s interesting, because sometimes they bring up Black shows and they don’t talk about Diff’rent Strokes. And I’m like, ‘How could you not talk about Diff’rent Strokes?’ That was a pivotal point for a lot of other shows to start happening. It paved the way for a lot of other Black actors to come into this business and to push further.” The post Todd Bridges Talks Sobriety, Surviving Sexual Abuse, Muhammad Ali, Gary Coleman appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.