Feud that rocked Desperate Housewives star: Why we don't see Teri Hatcher much any more

Teri Hatcher was once hot property in tinsel town, but incessant reports of behind the scenes feuds saw her career nosedive.

Teri Hatcher has recently worked her way back into the headlines again, as she attempts to reinvent herself as a YouTube sensation.

The former "It" star of Hollywood, 54, best known for her role as Susan on the smash hit show Desperate Housewives, has stepped up sharing videos to her cooking and wellness YouTube channel, Hatching Change, which has 14,000 subscribers.

It features dozens of homemade videos guiding viewers on how to cook various dishes, travel advice and decluttering.

It's a far cry from her Desperate Housewives days, which saw her pocketing upwards of $624,000 an episode and hitting red carpets on the regular.

The Marc Cherry created show, which ran from 2004 to 2012, was one of the most popular series' of its time, and made mega stars of its lead cast, including Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria, Nicollette Sheridan and Felicity Huffman.

Prior to the show, Hatcher had already found fame playing the iconic Lois Lane opposite Dean Cain in the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, from 1993 to 1997.

At the height of the show's popularity in 1995, a picture of Hatcher wrapped in a Superman cape was reportedly the most downloaded image on the internet.

She was a force in the industry, and on top of her talent was considered one of Hollywood's sexiest women.

But before Desperate Housewives sensationally ended in 2012, rumours had been swirling for some time of a rift among the cast.

E! reported at the time the tension started years earlier, after Hatcher won a Golden Globe in 2005.

"You could trace the tension back to then," E! gossip columnist Ted Casablanca said.

"It was a huge coup for her. Teri was riding a wave that year, and she was sort of riding it on top of everybody else."

But the wedge became public knowledge when Longoria, Cross, Huffman and fellow co-star Vanessa Williams reportedly didn't include Hatcher in their parting gift to the crew.

A production source said: "The girls don't get along with Teri so they organised this and left her out."

TV Guide magazine's William Keck had watched Hatcher on the set and said she "physically separates herself from the others during breaks in filming. Something went down two seasons ago that created a deep rift."

After the finale aired, and amid widespread gossip about the feud, Hatcher said to TV Guide: "I will never disclose the true and complicated journey of us all, but I wish everyone on the show well."

At the time it was all very much tabloid goss, with the stars saying very little. But the rumours had life breathed into them this year, when Longoria penned an extraordinary letter to attest to Huffman's character in September, in an attempt to keep the star out of jail for her role in the college-admissions scandal.

In a letter submitted to the court, Longoria, 44, opened up about the "bullying" she was subjected to on the set of the hit show.

"There was a time I was being bullied at work by a co-worker," Longoria writes, not naming the co-star. "I dreaded the days I had to work with that person because it was pure torture. "Until one day, Felicity told the bully 'enough' and it all stopped. Felicity could feel that I was riddled with anxiety even though I never complained or mentioned the abuse to anyone," Longoria wrote in the letter, which has been obtained by NBC News.

Longoria also revealed Huffman had been her sole supporter in achieving pay parity with the rest of the main cast.

Longoria had joined the show as "a young, naive, Mexican girl who felt like I didn't belong" and was paid a fraction of the amount her much more famous co-stars like Hatcher and Cross received.

When Desperate Housewives became a worldwide hit and the main cast's contracts were up for negotiation, Huffman suggested they all negotiate together and ask for the same wage.

"This did not go over too well with the others. But Felicity stood up for me, saying it was fair because the success of the show depended on all of us, not one of us," she wrote.

"This fight lasted weeks, but Felicity held strong and convinced everyone this was the right thing to do. And thanks to her, I was bumped up to favoured nations. It wasn't about the money for me, it was the fact that I was seen as an equal, which is how Felicity had always seen me.

"I know I would not have survived those 10 years if it wasn't for the friendship of Felicity."

In a separate letter submitted to the judge, Cherry also freely alluded to on-set strife on the show, revealing one star stopped speaking to the rest of the cast during season seven.

"We had a problematic cast member on my show. She was a big star with some big behavioural problems. Everyone tried their darnedest to get along with this woman over the course of the show. It was impossible. And things went from bad to worse," Cherry wrote.

"At some point during season seven this woman decided she would no longer speak to her fellow cast members. (She would only communicate with the directors who were then forced to pass on her thoughts to her co-stars. This was alternately maddening and hilarious.)

"Felicity still insisted on saying, 'Good morning' to this actress, even though she knew she wouldn't get a response. I found out about this and asked Felicity about it. She smiled and said, 'Just because that woman's determined to be rude doesn't mean she can keep me from being polite'."

Huffman also stoked long-running rumours last year when she posted a touching tribute to the show online, complete with personalised messages to each of her former co-stars — except Hatcher.

For many years, fans speculated Sheridan was the person reportedly causing friction on set, given she was fired two seasons out from the end.

But her character wasn't in the final two seasons, which is when Cherry said the drama began to occur.

More details from behind the scenes came out when Sheridan sued Cherry in 2012 for "wrongful termination" after she was accused of being a "negative presence on set for years" before her character, Eddie Britt, was killed off.

It emerged during the years-long legal battle, which was tossed out in 2017, that an on-set fight happened between Sheridan and Hatcher. Cherry recalled Sheridan told him Hatcher was "the meanest woman in the world", which he said in his testimony in 2012.

After a guest role on the short-lived series Jane by Design, Hatcher became a voice actress for Disney's Jake and the Never Land Pirates.

In 2016, she started recurring as a neighbour in the Odd Couple reboot. And despite reuniting with Cain, her 2017 appearance on Supergirl – her only recent TV work – didn't garner much hype.

Hatcher currently has no film or TV projects in the works, according to IMDb.

She denied claims she was homeless, depressed and living out of a van at the beginning of 2018, with tar magazine reporting she had moved out of her $7.8 million home.

"On the cover yesterday (Star magazine has) an article that says exactly that — it's totally absurd — that I am broke and homeless and living out of my van," Hatcher said in a televised interview.

"It's categorically false. I am not broke. I have done very well investing my money. I am not homeless and I am not living out of my van."

She said the photos were of her shooting her YouTube series in a van at a beach in Los Angeles.

"The magazine reached out to my publicist to say, 'We have these paparazzi photos of Teri at the beach'," she said.

"They said they were going to run this story about me being broke, and I think they even used the word suicidal and homeless and whatever.

"And my lawyer and my publicist said, 'Categorically not true, you can't print that, she's doing a YouTube show, that's her van, she has many homes in many states all over the country. There's nothing about this that's true.'

"And then they went and ran it anyway. And that is even more egregious that it was so purposefully hurtful."