‘Friends’ cast only met up once in 17 years after show finished

Lisa Kudrow has revealed that the six core members of the Friends cast only met up once in the 17 years after the show ended.

The hugely successful sitcom aired on NBC for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004, with Kudrow starring alongside Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and the late Matthew Perry.

After the series finale – which was one of the most-watched television episodes in US history – the stars did not appear together on screen again until Friends: The Reunion on HBO Max in 2021. Now Kudrow has said that, even off screen, they were only in the same room again one other time in the intervening years.

Speaking on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, the Phoebe Buffay actor said: “We’d only had dinner, the six of us, once before since the show ended.”

The cast of ‘Friends’, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow, on Sept. 12, 2003 in Burbank, CA.(Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)

Revealing that the rendezvous happened around “10 years” after the final episode, she added that it was, “Just us at someone’s house and [we] had dinner, and like, didn’t miss a beat”.

On the recent 30th anniversary of the show, Cox said she “can’t imagine” a reboot of Friends that would work. “It’s hard to try to redo anything,” she said. “Anything with ‘re’ in front of it with this group…I think it’s so special.”

She has, however, shared her love for the show and its legacy, describing it as “incredible”, and saying, “Every joke holds up, all the characters are just so amazing, and we [had] the best writers in the world. I’m lucky that it continues on through all the generations. And that’s very fortunate.”

After Perry was found dead in October 2023 at his Los Angeles home, an autopsy report ruled his manner of death as an accidental drug overdose, revealing he died from the acute effects of ketamine.

In September, Dr Mark Chavez was charged in connection with the actor’s death and has pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine. Two others – Perry’s assistant Kenneth Iwasama and friend Erik Fleming – have pleaded guilty to their involvement in the Friends star’s fatal overdose.

Iwasama, Fleming and Chavez were offered lesser charges by prosecutors in exchange for their cooperation as they pursue others they believe to be more responsible for Perry’s death, namely Dr Salvador Plasencia and Jasveen Sangha – the so called ‘Ketamine Queen’ – who allegedly supplied Perry with ketamine.

Sangha has pleaded not guilty and claims she never met Perry. Dr Plasencia has also pleaded not guilty to illegally selling ketamine to Perry in the month before his death. Both will go on trial in March 2025.

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