McCarthy may deny the love connection, but he does remember a wild night out with the “Cabaret” star, Gilbert, Rob Lowe, and more in the glitzy ʼ80s.

Andrew McCarthy denies Melissa Gilbert’s claim that he made out with Liza Minnelli in the ʼ80s

McCarthy may deny the love connection, but he does remember a wild night out with the "Cabaret" star, Gilbert, Rob Lowe, and more in the glitzy ʼ80s.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 31, 2026 7:29 p.m. ET

ʼ80s era Andrew McCarthy, Melissa Gilbert, Liza Minnelli. Credit:

Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch via Getty;

- Andrew McCarthy denies a years-old claim that he once made out with Liza Minnelli.

- In her 2010 memoir *Prairie Tale*, Melissa Gilbert wrote she saw the two kiss during a night out that also included Sammy Davis Jr., Rob Lowe, and Michael Jackson.

- "I would love to have made out with Liza Minnelli, but we did not," the Brat Packer told *Page Six*.

Andrew McCarthy has happily partied with Liza Minnelli at Sammy Davis Jr.'s house, but make out with the *Cabaret *star he did not.

This swinging tale of ʼ80s L.A. debauchery comes from *Little House on the Prairie *star Melissa Gilbert's 2010 memoir *Prairie Tale*. In the book, Gilbert claimed that during a night out with her then-boyfriend, *Parks and Rec *star Rob Lowe; his agent, Michael Black; and McCarthy, the dining room at the iconic Beverly Hills eatery Spago got even starrier when Liza Minnelli and Michael Jackson crashed their table.

According to Gilbert, dinner then turned into a rendezvous at Sammy Davis Jr.'s Los Angeles abode, and then a jaunt over to Black's apartment, where the did-they-or-didn't-they makeout sesh allegedly took place.

McCarthy told *Page Six* in an interview published Sunday that while he wouldn't have been opposed, it very much did not take place.

Michael Jackson and Liza Minnelli in 1988 in New York City.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

"I would love to have made out with Liza Minnelli, but we did not," he told the outlet. He did, however, remember a starstruck night at Spago with Gilbert, Black, and Lowe that eventually added the EGOT winner and daughter of stage-and-screen legend Judy Garland.

The Brat Pack members indeed went back to the original Rat Pack star's house, as Gilbert told it too.

"It was an incredible night... I should have quit show business then. We did not sing around the piano; mostly, we did a lot of drinking. Sammy was sober, but he was playing bartender," McCarthy recalled.

Jackson did not factor into his memory of the evening, but Minnelli "gave me a ride home because I'd drunk too much."

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* *has reached out to a representative for Minnelli for comment.

"She was super lovely to me," McCarthy recalled of the *Arrested Development *scene stealer, Of Minnelli and Davis Jr. both, he said, "They were both generous and kind. I remember Sammy going, 'I've got my eye on you young cat, I like what you're doing!' It was great, Rat Pack meets the Brat Pack."

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McCarthy has walked down memory lane back to this particular occasion before. In the 2024 Hulu documentary about the so-called "Brat Pack" — the group of hotshot young ʼ80s stars that included McCarthy, Lowe, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and others — McCarthy recalled to Lowe, "We were shooting *St. Elmo's Fire*, and I remember following you over the hill going, 'Where's Spago?' [You're] like, 'Follow me.' I just remember sitting down next to a person: 'This is Liza.' and I went, 'I'll have a double vodka.'"

Lowe added that when thinks back on his Brat Pack days, "I think of nights like that... Because that stuff routinely happened. As it does when you're in that moment and you see that moment recycles every generation with different people with different names and different places."

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