Eric Idle has revealed that he has not seen his former Monty Python co-star John Cleese for a decade, as a long-running feud between the two comedians continues. The 82-year-old responded to a query on X/Twitter on Tuesday, stating: “Actually, I’m not. I haven’t seen him for 10 years.”
The public rift between Idle and Cleese, 86, has escalated over the past five years, primarily centred on business disagreements. In 2024, Idle declared their friendship “over” following changes in Monty Python’s management. He alleged that Cleese fired the troupe’s former manager, Jim Beach, and replaced him with Terry Gilliam’s daughter, Holly. Cleese has dismissed this as “an invention” and praised Holly as “very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working, and pleasant to have dealings with”.
Speaking on the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend in 2024, Idle attributed the conflict to financial matters: “We don’t disagree about comedy – this is only about money. This is only about business.” He also noted that their infrequent meetings have exacerbated tensions: “If you don’t sit across the table and know that person and what decade they’re in, I think that there’s a lot of room for disagreement.”
In a separate incident, Cleese posted on X/Twitter: “We always loathed and despised each other, but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge.” He later clarified that the remark was intended as a joke. Meanwhile, in May 2024, Cleese, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam reunited for Palin’s 81st birthday without Idle. Palin told Saga Magazine in 2025 that contact among the surviving members is now rare, describing their 2014 reunion shows as “a very good farewell”.
Monty Python was co-founded in 1969 by Idle, Cleese, Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. Chapman died in 1989, and Jones passed away in 2020.
