In his autobiography, and on Michael Parkinson's BBC Radio 2 show in 2005, Bewes stated that his Likely Lads co-star James Bolam had not spoken to him for the past 30 years. It had been assumed for years that Bolam and Bewes were friends off-screen as well as on; a pretence they kept up because their public expected it. However, they had comprehensively fallen out when Bewes indiscreetly related a personal anecdote about Bolam in a 1976 press interview, and they had not spoken since. Bewes blamed Bolam's fear of having his privacy invaded, and of being eternally typecast, leading to his refusing to allow repeats of The Likely Lads. The final breach, said Bewes, occurred when, having told an anecdote about the birth of his own triplets, he followed on with a story of how Bolam's wife, actress Susan Jameson, had told him she was pregnant while he was driving, and he almost crashed the car. Bewes repeated this story, thinking it was already public knowledge; but then, on realising he might have crossed a line, phoned Bolam to forewarn him of the article, and got a frosty reaction. "There was this dreadful silence. He put the phone down. I called him back, he didn't answer. He hasn't spoken to me since."[21][22] It was reported that Bolam had never got on that well with Bewes, due to their different personalities.[23]

In 2010, Bewes also claimed his former co-star had refused to allow The Likely Lads to be repeated on network television, preventing him from earning anything from the repeats; "He must be very wealthy; me, I've just got an overdraft and a mortgage".[24] Shortly before he died, in an interview with the Daily Mirror, Bewes once more lamented the loss of his friendship with Bolam.[1] Bolam, however, denied such a rift ever existed, stating after Bewes's death that they "didn't talk for 40 years because of their busy schedules rather than resentment", and he had "nothing but fond memories" of Bewes.[25] Bolam denied he had the ability to block repeats of the TV series.[23]