Lisa Kudrow Calls Out Mean Friends Writers
by Stephanie SoteriouBuzzFeedBuzzFeed StaffI’m an innately nosey and chronically online celebrity and pop culture journalist, with my specialist areas including deep-diving lyrics and calling out Terrible Men™.
People have been left saddened by Lisa Kudrow’s revelations about the “mean stuff going on behind the scenes” during Friends.
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As I’m sure you know, Lisa and her five castmates — Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer — shot to global fame in the ‘90s after landing lead roles in the iconic NBC sitcom, which aired for 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004.
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The show was an absolutely huge success; according to various reports, the six main cast members were originally paid $22,500 per episode during Season 1, and by the third season, this had jumped to $100,000.
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By Season 9, the cast had famously negotiated a salary of $1 million per episode — the largest-ever deal for a sitcom at the time. And if you’re wondering, most seasons consisted of 24 episodes, with some as high as 25.
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And while Friends was and remains one of the biggest shows of all time, Lisa has now lifted the lid on the not-so-glamorous parts of filming as she called out how the writers treated the actors — particularly her, Jen, and Courteney.
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In a recent interview with the Times, Lisa explained that Friends had around 12–15 writers working on the show, most of whom were men, adding to the publication: “There was definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes.”
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“Don’t forget, 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,’” Lisa went on. “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.”
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In the interview, it is noted that a writers’ assistant, Amaani Lyle, filed a sexual harassment case against the writers when she worked on Friends. Amaani’s job was to transcribe the team’s brainstorming sessions, and she was left horrified when they would talk about sleeping with Jennifer and Courteney, “feigning masturbation and receiving oral sex.”
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Amaani ended up losing the case. Lisa shared: “Oh, it could be brutal, but these guys — and it was mostly men in there — were sitting up until 3 a.m. trying to write the show, so my attitude was: ‘Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn’t matter.’”
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Needless to say, this was all news to longtime fans of the show, who have been left horrified by Lisa’s comments. Discussing the interview on a Reddit forum, one person said: “What the fuck. And this is when Jennifer and Courtney were relatively quite powerful in the industry and you certainly didn't want to piss them off. You know if those writers made disparaging comments about lead actors they would be fired.”
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“Good on her for speaking out about it now, can’t imagine how difficult it must’ve been for the actors to do their jobs in an environment like this,” another added, while somebody else wrote: “Sorry to hear that, but happy that's she's spilling the beans, no more protecting of shitty men 🤝”
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And one more simply concluded: “men are disgusting.”
What do you make of Lisa’s comments? Let me know down below.
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