Lisa Kudrow has opened up about her blunt feelings on a Friends storyline, revisiting long-standing frustrations with the show’s male writing team in a candid new reflection.
The 62-year-old actress, best known as Phoebe Buffay on the hit sitcom, reflected on the controversial Ross and Rachel breakup storyline that has long divided fans.
The fan divide has centered on whether Ross was in the right when he slept with someone else after stating he and Rachel were 'on a break.'
Kudrow, fresh off revealing her Friends residuals, offered a sharp opinion on Monday’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, though she confessed she was wary of bringing it up.
“What is your take? Were they on a break?” Fallon asked, to which she replied, “Well, no. But it's beyond that. It's beyond break or not. He was a bad boyfriend.”
Kudrow was surprised when fans applauded her reply, stating, “Oh, you agree! Oh, I feel better. Thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you, all of you.”
“We did the reunion just like five years ago... we were all so like, ‘They were on a break.’ Like, ‘Rachel, that hysterical shrew, not letting him sleep with someone and won't get back together,’” Kudrow recalled.
“She shouldn't have gotten back with him because he was horrible,” she added.
Kudrow questioned the storyline, suggesting it overlooked Ross’s reaction to Rachel’s work-related crisis and her brief unavailability, which she felt was treated unfairly dramatic.
When Fallon asked if David Schwimmer knew she thought his character was a bad boyfriend, Kudrow stayed silent, prompting Fallon to joke, “He knows now.”
Kudrow played Phoebe throughout the show's ten-season run from 1994 to 2004, alongside Aniston, Cox, Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry.
