Former Friends Writer Claims The Cast Would “Deliberately Tank” Jokes

To this day, the hit ’90s sitcom Friends is adored by fans for its witty one-liners. However, according to one of the show’s former writers, the core cast wasn’t always down to make a joke. Writing in her autobiography, End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood, series writer Patty Lin claims that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, and Matt LeBlanc would intentionally ruin jokes they weren’t too fond of, forcing them to be rewritten.

“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,” Lin claimed. “Dozens of good jokes would get thrown out just because one of them had mumbled the line through a mouthful of bacon.”

Lin, who worked on Friends Season 7, alleges that the show’s cast viewed themselves as “guardians of their characters,” adding: “They often argued that they would never do or say such-and-such. That was occasionally helpful, but overall, these sessions had a dire, aggressive quality that lacked all the levity you’d expect from the making of a sitcom.”

Meanwhile, Lin also claimed that Friends’ established team of writers was “cliquey” and not particularly welcoming. “They reminded me of the preppy rich kids in my high school who shopped at Abercrombie & Fitch and drove brand-new convertibles,” she added.

Speaking in March 2023, one of the show’s lead stars Aniston (aka Rachel Green) discussed how “comedy has evolved” since Friends’ heyday, adding that modern audiences might be more sensitive to some of the sitcom’s jokes today.

“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” Aniston told AFP. “There were things that were never intentional and others … well, we should have thought it through … but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now.”