Lisa Kudrow Changes Her Mind About Controversial Friends Storyline

You can judge the cultural impact of a TV series by how much it crosses the threshold into everyday life.

In the case of Friends, the show came to define everything from haircuts (“The Rachel”) to romantic idealism (finding “your lobster”) at the peak of its popularity.

And, of course, it also inspired one of the longest-running TV debates – whether or not Ross and Rachel really were “on a break”.

One of the key plot points of the iconic 90s sitcom was an argument about whether or not David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston’s on-off characters were “on a break” when Ross slept with another woman (Chloe – “the hot girl from the Xerox place”), leading to an explosive row.

The incident was the tipping point in a storyline that saw Ross grow increasingly jealous of Rachel’s work colleague Mark, as she clocked in hours trying to climb the ladder in her dream fashion job.

In recent years, thanks in part to Friends finding a home on streaming platforms Netflix and, more recently, HBO Max, younger generations have found Friends and fallen in love with it just as millennials did the first time round.

However, some elements of the show, in particular Ross’s “problematic” behaviour have come under the microscope for not having aged as well.

One person who’s also had a rethink when it comes to Ross and Rachel’s rocky patch is cast member Lisa Kudrow, who famously played Phoebe Buffay on the show for its run between 1994 and 2004.

In an interview with Irish radio station Beat 102 103, Lisa revealed that she’s changed her opinion on the couple’s relationship, admitting that it reflected attitudes at the time when it came to women.

“I just saw it recently and I hadn’t seen that episode,” she explained, talking about the infamous season three instalment The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break.

She continued: “I watched Rachel having a crisis at work so she was working late – not forever – for a limited amount of time.

“Ross just wasn’t having it as if it wasn’t allowed and guess what? Back then it kind of wasn’t allowed. He was a paleontologist, his career was more important and we all bought into that. Not fair.”

Jennifer Aniston has also admitted that some episodes of Friends haven’t aged too well, either.

“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” she said in a 2023 interview.

She continued: “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.”