Courteney Cox's Controversial Friends Commercial Never Made It On The Air And Was Banned By NBC
Courteney Cox has come a long way since her breakout role as Monica Geller in Friends. Although she hates watching herself on the show and doesn't even remember filming it, the sitcom helped her land other major gigs like the Scream franchise where she met her ex-husband David Arquette.
But before Friends became a huge hit, Cox did a controversial commercial for the series, which was banned by NBC... Here's the story behind the promotional clip.
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Is Courteney Cox Still Friends With Her Friends Co-Stars?
Cox has kept in touch with her Friends co-stars all these years. Perry, who played her love interest, Chandler, said that the cast makes an effort to see each other as much as they can. "We try to get together when we can. Courteney is a great host, and she has a nice place in Malibu, and we try to go out there as often as possible," he told Buzzfeed in April 2015. "But the six of us haven't been in a room together for a number of years."
The Zoom star has also remained close friends with Aniston. The latter is godmother to Cox's daughter, Coco Arquette. In an interview with The Evening Standard, Aniston said of their friendship: "I've slept in her guest bedroom a lot. Without giving away too much of my private stuff, all I can say is she's been there for me through thick and thin."
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Is Courteney Cox still friends with their Friends co-stars?
The two are also close to Kudrow, contrary to some rumors that they've excluded her from their friendship. However, the Frasier actress admitted to feeling a little insecure around Aniston and Cox before. "It's not that I felt horrible around them. Fittings were not fun. That's for sure. I have a different body type," Kudrow shared, before revealing that hugging them was awkward at first. "I felt like this mountainous thing that swallowed them alive."
Although we don't always see all three of them together in public, they usually have sleepovers and dinners, which we're sure are always fun.
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Is Courteney Cox Still Acting?
In 2022, Cox reunited with her ex-husband for Scream 5. She's also on the movie's sixth installment, which premieres this 2023. In May 2022, the actress teased: " I'll tell you in the script — it's a really good one. You actually have to be killed if you talk about it, so I'm not gonna say anything." Shooting wrapped in August that year, which the Shining Vale star celebrated by posting an Instagram video featuring Ghostface.
Although fans are excited to see Cox as Gale Weathers again, they're also heartbroken that they won't be seeing another beloved character, Sidney Prescott. Neve Campbell declined the offer to reprise her role after getting an offer that didn't reflect her value to the franchise. "I did not feel that what I was being offered equated to the value that I bring to this franchise, and have brought to this franchise, for 25 years, and as a woman in this business, I think it's really important for us to be valued and to fight to be valued," she explained to People.
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Is Courteney Cox still acting?
She added: "I honestly don't believe that if I were a man and had done five installments of a huge blockbuster franchise over 25 years, that the number that I was offered would be the number that would be offered to a man. And in my soul, I just couldn't do that. I couldn't walk on set feeling that — feeling undervalued and feeling the unfairness, or lack of fairness, around that."
Cox's ex-husband, Arquette expressed his support for Campbell, saying that he understands her decision as "it's all a business in a way, they have to balance all these elements to fit a budget and produce a film" and that "she [can] absolutely be in future ones, but I think it's up to fans to call for that in the future."
Why Was Courteney Cox's Friends Commercial Banned?
Back in 1994, Friends released a hilarious commercial wherein Cox — alongside her co-stars Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Matt LeBlanc — were joking about wearing their underwear for the sake of ratings. In the clip, the Scream star was refusing to strip down to get more views. But when she heard that the show had scored a prime time slot, she immediately asks LeBlanc to unzip her dress.
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Courteney Cox in banned Friends commercial
It all sounds like harmless fun. But it goes to show how times have changed in the last 28 years. During the cast's 2021 reunion, fans even slammed the show for aging poorly as it lacked diversity.
Director Ben Winston addressed the issue, telling The Sunday Times: "We have Malala, Mindy Kaling, BTS [the South Korean boy band]. There are three women from Ghana, one who talks about how Friends saved her life. Two boys from Kenya. Three kids in India. What more diversity do they want in this reunion? The cast is the cast. It was made in 1994. I think it's remarkable how well it does stand the test of time."
Executive producer, Kevin Bright later clarified that they "didn't intend to have an all-white cast," adding that it "was not the goal, either" as "obviously, the chemistry between these six actors speaks for itself." Kudrow also spoke about the backlash, saying that the show creators "have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of color."
