Larry Wilcox admitted that his release of “chips” was not his choice, alleging that his former Co-Star Erik Estrada “dismissed” him criminal drama in the middle of their infamous quarrel.
Wilcox – who played the officer Jon Baker for five seasons on the NBC series between 1977 and 1982 – exceeded the confession of the bomb while appearing in an episode of “Still Here Hollywood Podcast with Steve Kmetko” on Monday, where he remained his beef with Estrada and gave a new idea of his departure from the show.
The actor did not hold back when he described Estrada, because he remembers having thought that his former co-star was the “greatest selfish hole” which he ever met.
According to Wilcox, Estrada – who played the officer Frank “Ponch” Poncherello for the whole series of six seasons of “chips” – had continued MGM and NBC after a couple of accidents on the set that filmed the program, and its withdrawal from the distribution would have been one of the “requests” of Estrada.
“‘SO [NBC Executive Brandon Tartikoff] said as much as he hates doing it, he really has no choice, “said Wilcox, remembering that his agent announced the news.” And Larry, Erik wants you to be out of there, and other actors too. And you left. I’m sorry.'”
Wilcox said that his team had worked hard to find a strategy to give the impression that he had left the show of his own will because he did not want to “resemble the loser here”.
“It was a bit disturbing to say the least, right? Abandonment, disloyalty, all the things that annoy me,” he added.
And while Wilcox noted that he was “angry” in Estrada for a long time, he finally decided to leave the drama – and even kiss his sworn enemy as an Imi.
As he said, he refused to “wallow in revenge” and rather chose to “love him on him unconditionally”.
According to Wilcox, this new start allowed them to become the best friends and allowed them to meet for the reunion film “Chips”, broadcast on TNT in October 1998.
He concluded: “I really appreciate it now. I look at him as a spectator. Like all of us, I see good and harm to Erik Estrada, but a lot of entertainment. He is an artist who likes to be an artist. Let it be so. May God bless him. “
Thewrap contacted the representative of Estrada to comment and did not immediately hear.
You can watch the full podcast “Still Here Hollywood with Steve Kmetko” in the video above.
