Lisa Kudrow Thought Chandler Bing Was A Gay Character

One of Friends’ many running jokes during its 10 seasons on air was people falsely assuming Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) was gay. But it turns out it wasn’t just characters on the show who were confused. While reflecting on her early Friends days, Lisa Kudrow revealed she had the same misconception.

On the July 22 episode of the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay on the show, said she initially read Chandler as a gay character. “I thought that Chandler character, when I read it, I thought, ‘Oh, they have a gay character, that’s good,’” she confessed. “That’s all I heard, you know.”

She then revealed she was taken aback by Perry’s portrayal of Chandler during an early Friends table read. “I just did a double take at him [like], ‘Oh my God.’ I never, even in a million years, could have envisioned anyone playing the character like that,” she continued. “With his own rhythm and everything. It’s his own. Impeccable timing, but also just hilarious.”

Kudrow and Perry went on to star together in Friends from 1994 to 2004, alongside Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, and Matt LeBlanc. While the character of Chandler was not gay, and married Monica Geller (Cox) in Season 7, Friends co-creator David Crane previously said the writers could have gone in another “direction” with the character’s sexuality.

“We didn’t go into this determined that Chandler would be straight,” Crane told The Advocate in 1996. “If we had cast a different actor — who was gay — there was the option that we would have taken the character in that direction.”

The hit sitcom did introduce several LGBTQ+ characters during its run. In Season 2, fans watched Ross Geller’s ex-wife Carol marry her girlfriend, Susan, in “The One with the Lesbian Wedding,” and the transgender character Helena Handbasket (Chandler’s father) debuted in Season 7.

Kudrow’s Friends Rewatch

On the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Kudrow also said she’s been revisiting Friends following Perry’s death, after previously being unable “to watch it at all.”

“After Matthew died, I could start watching the show again because it wasn’t about me. It had to do with him for some reason,” she added. “So, I have started watching Friends. Not started like Season 1… But there are marathons on, and I have spent, at times, since he died, all day long watching the show.”

Perry died at the age of 54 in October 2023. In an Instagram tribute honoring her late co-star, Kudrow thanked Perry “for the best 10 years a person gets to have.”

“Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you,” she wrote. “Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”