When you look back at Friends, you have to admit, it was a practically flawless show. Whereas other comedies tend to go downhill in the later seasons, the NBC sitcom remained hilarious from start to finish, with it still picking up new fans today, 14 years after the curtain fell.
However, not everyone would name the popular American comedy "flawless". In fact, it was recently revealed that one of its main stars actually had a massive problem with one storyline in particular.
This week, Friends executive producer Kevin S Bright admitted that Matt Le Blanc, who played ladies' man Joey Tribbiani hated one of his character's romantic entanglements on the show. And there are no big prizes for guessing which one: Joey and Rachel, of course.
Speaking to Digital Spy, Kevin said: "I can tell you this – in the beginning, Matt LeBlanc did not want to do that story. He was very firmly against it, saying that he's Ross's friend, and that the type of friend that Joey is would never go and take someone else's girlfriend."
The producer explained that it took "a lot of conversations" to convince LeBlanc to agree to the plot, while also acknowledging that the audience initially weren't too keen on the unexpected coupling either. Bright stated that the show's viewers eventually "got on board" after initially being "shocked" by the surprise coupling.
"I think, if she's not going to be with Ross, who else would you want her with?" he said. "That went okay with the audience. No big letters on that one!"
The shortlived romance between the two unlikely Friends has caused controversy from the moment it aired, with fans still debating whether it could have worked - or whether it should have existed in the first place - to this day.
Back in 2017, Jennifer Aniston - who played Rachel Green - also spoke out against the storyline, claiming that, for her, it was "Ross and Rachel all the way".
"No! No, no. They tried!" she told Elle. "I think there was a moment when Joey and Rachel got together that maybe it could happen, but it didn't. It was Ross and Rachel all the way. I really believe that if there's an afterworld of Friends, they're still thriving. Don't you? I just don't think Joey and Rachel could have made it. I think it was more physical than emotional with them. They were friends with benefits, and they left it at that."
Her comments came after an 100-tweet thread that claimed Joey and Rachel should have ended up together went viral. "In Defence of Rachel and Joey: A Thread" sparked controversy online, with fans who shipped Ross and Rachel, and fans who loved Joey and Rachel together, battling it out on Twitter.
It looks like fans will be arguing about this one for quite some time to come.
