The Huffington Post
Lisa Kudrow on stage at the 2025 SAG Awards Lisa Kudrow has admitted there was some tension between the cast and crew of Friends . During a recent interview with The Times , Lisa was asked about Friends’ enduring appeal, suggesting that the show “ captured a kind of innocence” that Gen Z viewers might attract younger viewers looking back at a simpler time. However, she conceded that not all of it was so innocent. “There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes,” the Emmy winner admitted, specifically referring to the derogatory treatment she and her co-stars could receive from the show’s predominantly-male writers’ room. She recalled: “We were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers’ lines or it didn’t get the perfect response they could be like, ‘Can’t the bitch fucking read? She’s not even trying. She fucked up my line’. “And we know that back in the room the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies about Jennifer and Courteney. It was intense.” She added: “It could be brutal, but these guys – and it was mostly men in there – were sitting up until 3am trying to write the show so my attitude was, ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter’. ” The Times’ piece also refers to a sexual harassment case from former Friends writing assistant Amaani Lyle – who complained about her colleagues’ sexualised jokes, often about the show’s female leads – in 1999. At the time, the case was thrown out as it was ruled that vulgar and lewd comments were to be expected in a “creative workplace” where sexual humour was part of the show. Former Friends writer Patty Lin published a book in 2023, in which she also spoke about the work culture behind the scenes , recalling how her mostly male colleagues would “ constantly” talk about sex in an atmosphere that was comparable to “an endless cocktail party”. She also spoke disparagingly about Friends’ central cast, claiming the actors would intentionally spoil takes if they didn’t like a joke that had been written for them. “They all knew how to get a laugh, but if they didn’t like a joke, they seemed to deliberately tank it, knowing we’d rewrite it,” she alleged, “Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon.” She accused the stars of seeming “unhappy to be chained to a tired old show”, claiming that they were self-interested and that table reads often had a “dire, aggressive quality” as a result. Meanwhile, in Lisa’s subsequent hit series The Comeback – which she co-created as well as starring in – her character Valerie Cherish encounters the writers on her sitcom making sexual jokes about her while paying them a surprise visit. She said in 2010 : “It’s worth mentioning that the writers who worked on The Comeback had experiences in many other writers’ rooms, and none of this seemed foreign to them. In fact, it made all the sense in the world to them.” MORE FRIENDS: There's A Very Cool Friends Throwback In Lisa Kudrow's Final Season Of The Comeback Lisa Kudrow Says Season 8 Scene Had Her Crying With Laughter During Friends Rewatch Lisa Kudrow Has Had A Change Of Heart About Friends' Most Controversial Storyline
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