Mackenzie Phillips Details Getting Fired From ‘One Day at a Time’
What To Know
- Mackenzie Phillips revealed she was fired from One Day at a Time after a co-executive producer demanded a drug test amid her substance abuse struggle.
- She described how the show’s producers enforced a strict morals contract.
- Phillips admitted to using drugs with co-star Valerie Bertinelli during lunch breaks.
Mackenzie Phillips recently opened up about getting fired from One Day at a Time due to a clause in her contract.
During a July 10 appearance at Fanboy Expo Knoxville, Phillips — who played Julie Cooper in the ’70s sitcom — detailed the incident, which happened amid her addictions to heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.
“Part of the contract was, because we all had a morals contract, but mine was a little more specific,” Phillips, 66, said at the expo, per People. She explained that if anyone in production suspected she was under the influence, she would immediately be sent “to a doctor for urinalysis.”
Phillips, who portrayed Ann Romano’s (Bonnie Franklin) rebellious daughter/Barbara Cooper’s (Valerie Bertinelli) older sister, was asleep on a couch during a lunch break when she was confronted by co-executive producer Patricia Fass Palmer.
“Everybody would just take a little nap,” she recalled. “And Patricia Fass Palmer, who I hated for years and now we’re very good friends, she came up to me, and she said, ‘Mac, wake up. Wake up. We’re gonna take you to the doctor and have you pee in a cup.'”
Although the actress tried to stall, thinking that “cocaine runs through your system so quickly,” Palmer insisted on the testing.
“She said, ‘No, we’re not waiting until tomorrow,'” Phillips detailed. “And I said, ‘OK, well.’ She said, ‘All right, Mac. Grab your stuff and get it together. Get all your stuff. And leave.’ So that’s what I did. And that was that.”
Phillips was first booted from One Day at a Time in 1980 amid her substance abuse struggle. She returned in 1981 but fired for a second (and final) time in 1983.
During a May 2026 interview with Fox News Digital, Phillips discussed how she and Bertinelli would “drink wine, and snort coke” on their lunch break. “We would do coke together in the dressing room and stuff,” she added. “I just happened to be the one that got caught. And thank God I got caught, you know?”
One Day at a Time aired for nine seasons from 1975 to 1984. In addition to Phillips, Franklin, and Bertinelli, the sitcom starred Pat Harrington Jr., Glenn Scarpelli, Michael Lembeck, Boyd Gaines, and Nanette Fabray, among others. In 2017, a reboot premiered but ended after three seasons.
One Day at a Time, streaming on Tubi
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Mackenzie was fired because her drug use was affecting her work. She was not fired simply because she used drugs. And I have never heard, until this interview, that Valerie was doing drugs with her. I doubt the truth of the accusation, but even if it is true, it didn't affect Valerie's work, so she was not fired.
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