Courteney Cox dishes on 'Friends' reunion: 'It was unbelievable; it was so emotional'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated May 6, 2021 2:56 PM ET

After delay on top of delay—much like Ross and Rachel's relationship—HBO Max's Friends reunion special finally filmed early last month, and Courteney Cox is reflecting upon what it was like to reflect on the iconic 1990s sitcom.

"It was unbelievable," Cox said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show via Zoom from her new London apartment shared with boyfriend Johnny McDaid. "It was so emotional. It's an unscripted reunion, but we got to be on Stage 24 for the first time—all of us—in, like, I forgot how many years. Fifteen years or seventeen years?"

Cox was referring to her core castmates: Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer. The 56-year-old actress dished that there will be "a lot of special surprises." (Justin Bieber?)

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DeGeneres showed Cox a photo of the six soaking wet and posing in the famous water fountain from the show's original opening sequence.

While Cox had admitted earlier in the segment that her memory is "the worst," she did have a sour memory of that fountain:

"We were in that fountain for a long time. Somebody thought that would just be really fun, and let me tell you what happens, it's not fun to be dancing in a fountain for hours and hours. I remember Matthew Perry saying at one point, and we didn't know each other that well at that point, but I remember—and this is so Matthew—he was like, 'Can't remember a time that I wasn't in this fountain.' Literally, we were just like, 'Oh my God. How much longer are we gonna pretend to love dancing in water?' It was fun, but not really."

LeBlanc and Kudrow had similar recollections for a 2018 deep-dive on the subject written by Refinery29's Kelsey Miller. "Everybody had pruney fingers," said LeBlanc, and Kudrow added: "I don't think we were in the mood—or could even look like we were having fun anymore."

In the bigger picture, Friends ran for 10 seasons on NBC from September 1994 to May 2004. In fact, today (May 6) is the 17-year anniversary of the air date for "The Last One: Part 2."

An entirely new generation latched onto Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe when the series hit Netflix, and as of January 2020, it has called HBO Max home. The reunion special was announced in February 2020.

Watch Cox's full nearly 14-minute segment below.

Megan Armstrong

Megan Armstrong (@megankarmstrong) is a writer whose work has appeared in places such as Billboard, GQ, Esquire, Bleacher Report, Uproxx, and others. Megan has also produced various podcasts and hosted a daily radio show at Mizzou. She grew up obsessed with sports — impressing adults by memorizing NFL statistics as a kindergartner — and grew into an obsession with music

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