Todd Bridges Recalls Reconnecting with “Diff’rent Strokes ”Costar Gary Coleman on a Plane After Years of Not Speaking

Mark Marino, Angela AndaloroSun, July 19, 2026 at 9:58 PM UTC

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Todd Bridges (left), Gary ColemanCredit: Marcus Ingram/Getty; Todd Williamson/Getty -

Todd Bridges appeared at the Fanboy Expo Knoxville, sharing his Diff’rent Strokes experience with audiences during the July 12 panel

Bridges took time to remember late costar and friend Gary Coleman, detailing how their estrangement ended

Coleman died in May 2010 at 42

Todd Bridges is grateful to have mended fences with Gary Coleman when he did.

During an appearance at the Fanboy Expo Knoxville, the actor, 61, discussed his relationship with his late Diff’rent Strokes costar, who died on May 28, 2010, after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

“The first three years [of Diff’rent Strokes] we were all very close, and then Gary’s parents came and changed a lot of stuff,” Bridges shared.

Bridges noted that they “weren’t very close after that.” However, after the series ended in 1986, they reconnected thanks to fate — and an airline crew.

“I’ll tell you a funny story. I hadn’t seen Gary in years or talked to him in years. I’m about to get on a plane, and somebody says, ‘Hey, man, your little brother’s here,’” he recalled. “I’m like, ‘I ain’t got no older brother, what are you talking about?’ He was like, ‘Your little brother’s here.’ I go, ‘Dude, I have no idea…’ He goes, ‘Gary Coleman.’ ”

“So I go, and I walk in on the plane, and I’m getting ready to sit down, and they sat us next to each other,” Bridges continued. “We were going to different places in New York, but I’m sitting, and he goes, ‘They set us up.’ I go, ‘Yes, they did.’ So we ended up sitting there and talking, and that’s how we connected again.”

Bridges discussed the complicated relationship the two actors shared during an August 2025 appearance on The Patrick LabyorSheaux with Patrick Labyorteaux.

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The actor recalled an argument between the two that escalated. “At 13 years old, Gary slapped me and I slapped him back,” Bridges recalled.

According to Bridges, Coleman’s father, Willie, believed that his son was more important to the cast than Bridges, which had him seeing red.

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Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’Credit: ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

“They were like, ‘Oh, we gotta fire him. He slapped the star,’” Bridges said. “And they were like, ‘Willie, we can’t fire Willis. The show is about Willis and Arnold. We can’t fire Willis. It would be dumb.’ “

Despite on-set differences in the later years of the series, Bridges noted that once the two reunited, they “became close again, very close again.”

“Because now Gary didn’t want anything to do with his parents because he knew what they were doing to him. And so we became very, very close,” he explained.

Diff’rent Strokes premiered in 1978, when Coleman was 10 and Bridges was 12. The sitcom, which aired for eight seasons, also starred Dana Plato, Conrad Bain, Danny Cooksey, Charlotte Rae, Mary Jo Catlett and Mary Ann Mobley.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”