William Shatner, 91, Eviscerates Former ‘Star Trek’ Co-Stars For Attacking Him – ‘They Are Full Of Envy And Hate’

William Shatner is lashing out at his former “Star Trek” co-stars who have publicly criticized him for his behavior on the set of the 1960s television series.

‘They Were Doing It For Publicity’

Daily Mail reported that Shatner, 91, claimed that his co-stars only publicly attack him “for the publicity.” 

“Sixty years after some incident they are still on that track. Don’t you think that’s a little weird? It’s like a sickness,” Shatner told The Times. “I began to understand that they were doing it for publicity.”

This comes after George Takei, who played Hikaru Sulu on “Star Trek,” spoke out against Shatner recently being sent into space thanks to the billionaire Jeff Bezos. This didn’t sit well with Takei, who said that Shatner was only being sent as a “guinea pig” to test out the impact space would have on an “unfit” specimen. 

“He’s a guinea pig, 90 years old and it’s important to find out what happens,” Takei told Page Six last year. “So 90 years old is going to show a great deal more on the wear and tear on the human body, so he’ll be a good specimen to study. Although he’s not the fittest specimen of 90 years old, so he’ll be a specimen that’s unfit!”

Shatner fired back at Takei for this in his latest interview. 

“George [Takei] has never stopped blackening my name,” Shatner said. “These people are bitter and embittered. I have run out of patience with them. Why give credence to people consumed by envy and hate?”

Takei, who remains very active on social media to this day, has yet to respond to this. 

Related: William Shatner Turns 91 Years Old – Fans Wish Him Happy Birthday

‘I Was Horrified’

Shatner has previously said that he was devastated when his late co-star Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Ulhura, accused him of being “cold and arrogant.”

“‘I was horrified to learn this, ashamed that I hadn’t realised it,” Shatner wrote in a memoir released last month. 

Though he isn’t close to his former co-stars, Shatner still has fond memories of his time on “Star Trek.” 

“Here is a group of people you get to love going on an adventure that, although unusual, harkens back to things that happen on Earth,” Shatner said, according to Variety. “The futurist stories we told were really human stories with a twist. People loved the stories, they loved the characters.”

While Shatner doesn’t watch “Star Trek” reruns, he does enjoy going to fan conventions. 

“I enjoy the conventions when I am on stage fielding questions,” Shatner said. “I have acquired a way of doing this hour so that it becomes a kind of mutual distribution of information. The fans are interesting, it’s part of the reason why I go.”

Related: William Shatner Honors ‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols After She Dies At 89

Shatner Talks Space

Shatner previously opened up about the immense grief he felt when he went to space last year.

“I was crying,” Shatner told NPR. “I didn’t know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what’s the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief.”

“It was the death that I saw in space and the lifeforce that I saw coming from the planet — the blue, the beige and the white,” he added. “And I realized one was death and the other was life.”

Whether Shatner’s former co-stars like him or not, there’s no denying that he’s a true icon who is beloved by millions of fans. Hopefully he doesn’t let the hate from his former “Star Trek” co-stars drag him down too much!