As any self-respecting Friends-head is no doubt aware, Matthew Perry's character of Chandler Bing, was once involved in a freak accident which resulted in him losing part of his right pinkie toe.
The factoid was revealed in the season 5 episode 'The One With All The Thanksgivings', and while it never came up again in the show’s run, it seems like the incident may have been inspired by a real-life accident that happened to Perry as a child.
In the show, Chandler lost part of his toe after Monica accidentally dropped a knife onto it during a clumsy attempt to seduce him before they eventually got together years later.
His character was rushed to hospital and could’ve had his missing toe reattached, but was thwarted when it was revealed that Monica had actually picked up a baby carrot instead of his severed digit by mistake.
But in real life, Perry lost part of his finger when he was three years old in “an unfortunate door-shutting accident in nursery school”, The Mirror reports, which resulted in him missing a digit from his left middle finger.
Perry has never tried to hide his finger injury but doesn’t talk about it often either, leaving even many Friends superfans unaware that there’s anything unusual about his hand.
Yet despite this, his missing fingertip can be spotted hiding in plain sight in numerous scenes throughout the show’s run, perhaps most noticeably in a season 2 episode in which Chandler grabs hold of his crazy roommate Eddie Menuek’s shoulder.
Slowly but surely though, more and more fans have started to notice Perry’s missing fingertip, often rushing to Twitter and Reddit to express their disbelief that something so obvious could have eluded them for so long.
“Its taken me 4 times through the Friends series to realize that Matthew Perry's right hand middle finger is shorter…” one user tweeted upon making the discovery.
Meanwhile another but things a bit more bluntly and blurted out “OKAY I WAS WATCHING FRIENDS AND LOOK AT CHANDLERS HAND! MATTHEW PERRY WHAT HAPPENED DUDE LOL”
Over on Reddit people were similarly shook upon noticing the mysterious missing fingertip.
“What!? I’ve never noticed this before. THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION” one redditor exclaimed.
Another user responded: “Right. Like am I not watching well enough? Gotta up my game. Only seen each episode like 20 times…”
Meanwhile, others wondered why the show’s writers chose to write a storyline focusing around Chandler missing a toe when he had a missing finger right there for the taking. "Seems like reality was trying to help the writers out with that one..." one viewer mused.
Another viewer admitted it took them over ten years of continuously watching the show to realize there was something odd with his middle finger.
But no matter how big of a Friends fan you might be, once you notice Perry’s missing fingertip you’ll never look at Chandler Bing the same way again.
