Goldie Hawn Has the Best Response to ‘Death Becomes Her’ Costar Meryl Streep Calling Her Out

If there’s one Hollywood friendship that proves you can bicker your way to bestie status, it’s Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep — and the two legends are still playfully sparring over their time on the set of Death Becomes Her more than three decades later.

The First Wives Club star recently responded to Streep’s claim that the pair had “beef” while filming the 1992 cult classic, as Closer previously reported.

“I think I’m 15 minutes late to everything. … I mean, honestly, it’s unbelievable,” Hawn, 80, told Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday, May 6.

But instead of getting defensive, Hawn leaned all the way into the bit. “She said I was too late on the set. Maybe she’s too early. I don’t know,” she told the outlet. “Sometimes when you’re too early, you’re still waiting for somebody and you think, ‘Oh, god, where the hell is she?'”

The whole thing started when Streep, 76, opened up about Hawn‘s chronic tardiness in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “And I’m always on time, you know, and annoying,” Streep, 76, told the outlet. “Yeah. So I had a beef with her.”

But any so-called rivalry was clearly all in good fun. Streep made it clear in the interview that Hawn is “one of her buddies,” adding that Hawn has “the best laugher in America, really.”

Death Becomes Her is a dark comedy directed by Robert Zemeckis. The Oscar-winning film follows a vain actress named Madeline (Streep) and her longtime rival Helen (Hawn) as they battle over a mild-mannered plastic surgeon played by Bruce Willis, 71. The film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and earned $149 million worldwide.

The movie’s enduring popularity led to a Broadway musical adaptation that opened in November 2024 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City. The show earned 10 Tony Award nominations and took home the Best Costume Design prize, cementing the story’s status as a pop-culture phenomenon.