The Friends cast pushed back against one controversial storyline – and it

wasn’t whether Ross and Rachel were on a break.

The iconic sitcom ran for 10 years before ending in 2004, and instantly

transformed stars Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow into household names.

Ahead of the 30-year anniversary of the first episode airing, writer Adam Chase reflected on some of the most jaw-dropping moments in a new chat, revealing that the gang really weren’t thrilled about two of the friends briefly dating.

Unpacking the decision to briefly pair Rachel (Jennifer) and Joey (Matt) together at the end of season nine and leading into the 10th and final series, he confessed that there was a lot of resistance.

‘The cast was very much against it,’ he told the Guardian. ‘It felt very incestuous to them.’

Rachel’s romance with Joey was short-lived and they quickly went back to being best friends, before she famously got off the plane to start things up again with on-off boyfriend Ross (David) in the finale.

But, ever since the credits rolled, there has been a huge debate about whether she should have stayed on her flight to Paris…

Lifting the lid on some other couples in the Friends universe, writer Andrew Reich explained that they hadn’t initially planned for Chandler (Matthew) and Monica (Courteney) to be an endgame pairing.

In fact, their relationship blossomed because of how the audience reacted to the initial reveal after their fling in London, at the end of season four.

‘It shook us,’ Andrew continued. ‘We all just kind of looked at each other like, “Wow, this is much bigger than we thought.”’

Their relationship quickly transformed from a holiday romance to something much deeper, with the characters tying the knot at the end of the seventh season, and welcoming twins via a surrogate in the finale.

However, it was revealed that Perry, who died in 2023, secretly stepped in after learning of plans for his character to cheat in Las Vegas.

Last year, Lisa Cash opened up about the scrapped plot and shared that she was originally meant to appear as Chandler’s love interest for the season five episode, the One In Vegas, before it was axed.

‘The scene was – Chandler and Monica were arguing in Las Vegas about Monica having lunch with [her ex-boyfriend] Richard,’ she told TMZ.

‘In our script, Chandler goes up to his hotel room and orders room service and I bring it up as a hotel worker.

‘We end up talking and laughing and connecting.’

‘The day before filming, I was told that he went to the writers and said the fans will never forgive Chandler for cheating on Monica,’ she continued, adding that he was ‘probably right’ as the affair would have ‘changed the course of the show’.

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