Beverly Hills, 90210 remains one of the most popular teen soaps of all time, 15 years after it ended — and star Ian Ziering wants to give the fans more! Ziering, who was eliminated in this week’s episode of The Celebrity Apprentice, visited HuffPost Live with also-eliminated former MLB outfielder Johnny Damon, and ended up reminiscing about his days as Steve Sanders.
Ziering’s character Steve was one of the wealthy teenagers at the show’s fictitious West Beverly Hills High School, and his costars included Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth, and Tori Spelling during its 1990 to 2000 run.
The FOX smash regularly featured risqué topics — including teen pregnancy, domestic violence, drug abuse, and suicide. In fact, one of Ziering’s character’s dramatic plotlines prompted him to have what he dubbed the cast’s “worst” blowup.
“There was an episode when Steve was accused of rape,” Ziering, 50, told HuffPost Live. “They edited out so much powerful stuff — that was like the first time I really got some great words to say… I brought game, and it never even made it through the edit.”
The season four episode, called “Take Back the Night,” left Ziering feeling “betrayed,” and he reacted emotionally — by tearing his dressing room apart.
“I’m not a volatile person, I have a very long fuse, but after working so hard on this particular episode, I just didn’t feel like they were with me on this one,” he explained of the meltdown.
Ziering said some of his costars even supported his destructive reaction — Priestley felt his lashing out at the show’s producers was “deserved.”
Despite the notoriously dramatic set, Ziering insists the cast are all still friends — and that a reunion may be in the works.
“I think [a reunion] is entirely possible, we’re all still really good friends,” the father of two shared. Ziering even tried to arrange a special back in 2010, but said he couldn’t get networks to bite.
“I was gonna invite the whole gang over, of course this would be landscaped, but not scripted, and there would be cameras all over the place, and it was gonna air on 9/02/10,” he revealed. Ziering joked that he might turn to Kickstarter to fund the get-together – so, there’s still hope yet!
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