Behind the Scenes of a Beloved Sitcom: Revelations from Mackenzie Phillips
Mackenzie Phillips, the actress best known for her role as Julie Cooper in the beloved 1970s and 80s sitcom One Day at a Time, has come forward with startling revelations about her experiences on set, particularly concerning her co-star Valerie Bertinelli. Phillips, now 66, claims that during the show’s run, she and Bertinelli would engage in illicit activities during their lunch breaks, retreating to Phillips’s home for wine and cocaine.
Phillips, who played Bertinelli’s on-screen sister Barbara Cooper, has been open about her long-standing struggles with substance abuse, which led to her being fired from One Day at a Time twice. She shared these candid details with Fox News Digital at the Chiller Theatre Expo in Parsippany, New Jersey.
“So this might surprise you that during lunch break, Valerie and I would drive to my house, get in the pool, drink wine, and snort coke,” Phillips recounted. She was quick to clarify that while she was battling a severe addiction, Bertinelli’s involvement was different.
Phillips elaborated, stating that Bertinelli has spoken about these experiences publicly, so her revelations are not intended to expose anything new or private. “But Valerie talks about it openly, so it’s not like I’m pulling her covers or anything,” she said. “The thing was that I was the, you know, Valerie didn’t have the kind of addiction that I had, she didn’t have addiction.”
Phillips admitted that they would sometimes use cocaine together in the dressing room. “I just happened to be the one that got caught,” she reflected. “And thank God I got caught, you know?”
Representatives for Valerie Bertinelli have been contacted for comment but had not yet responded at the time of reporting.
It’s worth noting that Bertinelli herself has previously acknowledged her youthful experimentation with cocaine alongside Phillips. According to reports, Bertinelli admitted to trying the drug as a teenager with Phillips. This early experience, she has indicated, foreshadowed later struggles, including during her marriage to the late Eddie Van Halen. In her memoir, Losing It, Bertinelli described a jarring moment where she and Van Halen were filling out pre-nuptial questionnaires with a priest, each holding a vial of cocaine. She reflected that this incident “doesn’t really bode well for the marriage, I don’t think.”
Phillips reiterated these accounts in a 2023 interview for her sister Chynna Phillips’s YouTube channel. Describing herself as the “obvious rebel” on set, she discussed her drug use and the consequences. “I got in trouble, I got caught doing drugs and all this kind of stuff… and I talk about it in High On Arrival, with Valerie’s permission, is that what people didn’t know is that we were leaving for lunch and going up to my house and drinking wine in the pool and chopping lines on the coffee table.” She again stressed that Bertinelli wasn’t using drugs to the same extent and was able to “slide under the radar.”
Mackenzie Phillips’s career began at a remarkably young age. She landed her first significant film role at just 12 years old in George Lucas’s 1973 hit American Graffiti. Her subsequent starring role as the rebellious Julie Cooper in One Day at a Time cemented her status as a teen idol. The show, which aired from 1975 to 1984, was a massive success, with Phillips reportedly being the highest-paid actor on the series at the time.
However, this early success was overshadowed by her escalating drug use. The addiction ultimately derailed her career, leading to her being fired from One Day at a Time on two separate occasions. Phillips has spoken about the profound impact of her substance abuse, revealing that her father, John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, introduced her to marijuana at the age of 10 and that she first tried cocaine at 11.
Her personal life also became entangled with her addiction. In her 2009 memoir, High On Arrival, Phillips made the deeply disturbing allegation of a 10-year incestuous relationship with her father, a claim that sent shockwaves through the public and fractured her family.
Reflecting on her dismissals from One Day at a Time, Phillips shared the devastating impact on her employability. “My addiction was so powerful and so out of control that when I was fired for the second time from the show for drug use, I thought, ‘Ah screw them, you know, I’ll get my next job in a minute,’ that did not happen. And I became basically unhirable for a long, long time,” she confessed.
The path to recovery was arduous. Phillips explained that after achieving sobriety for the first time, she had to put her ego aside. “Once I got sober for the first time I realized that I had to put my pride in my back pocket and not go, ‘Well I was on the biggest TV show all time,’ because there were many like me who refused to audition and I just said you know what I’m putting that behind me, and I went out and I pounded the pavement and I auditioned against a bunch of other young women and I started booking gigs and I started booking jobs.”
Her career eventually found new life, albeit in different avenues. After a period of “episodic hell,” she landed a role on the Disney Channel show So Weird, appearing in 65 episodes between 1999 and 2001. More recently, she has secured significant roles in the popular Netflix series Orange Is the New Black (2018) and the 2017-2020 reboot of One Day at a Time.
Phillips’s legal troubles also surfaced. In 2008, she pleaded guilty to cocaine possession after being arrested at Los Angeles International Airport. Reports indicated that she was found with drugs concealed in balloons and plastic bags. As part of her plea agreement, Phillips was required to complete an 18-month drug treatment program.
Today, Mackenzie Phillips has turned her life around and is dedicated to helping others navigate their own battles with addiction. She has become a qualified addiction counselor, working at the Breathe Life Healing Centers in Los Angeles. Her personal journey fuels her professional commitment. “My addiction was so powerful, and so rooted in early trauma, that I lost myself for many years,” she states on the centre’s website. “Now, with a strong recovery I’m committed to helping others find their voice at Breathe Life Healing Centers.”
