Friends' Creators Prepared For Hate Over Lesbian Wedding, Only To Be Hilariously Wrong

There are many people who believe that Friends would not stand a chance if it were held to modern standards.

If anything, the show would be considered problematic for its lack of diversity and numerous very questionable jokes about characters' appearances and sexuality.

However, back in the '90s when the show first aired, it was considered very progressive with the writers' views on same-sex relationships and marriage.

Although Ross' ex coming out as a lesbian and marrying another woman was a great story, the producers were ready for the hatred to come.

They did everything they could to prepare for the battle with conservative viewers. According to Marta Kauffman, after the episode "The One with the Lesbian Wedding" aired in January 1996, there was a whole team ready to take complaints.

Over 100 people sat there as a fully functioning call center with an emotional support line for offended homophobes… just to take a total of 2 calls.

"When we did the lesbian wedding episode of Friends, everybody was up in arms. [NBC] put 104 operators on for fear of getting a million phone calls. They got two. A month later, they got the letters, but nobody called," Kauffman explained.

This story may not have ended with the backlash that Friends was expecting, but it definitely reminded them of how much good there still is in humanity.

Not only was the amount of hate NBC got after the episode unexpectedly low, and they didn't get half the backlash they were preparing for, Friends was actually the highest-rated television show of the week, with 31.6 million viewers.

If you want to re-watch an iconic episode that was banned in parts of Texas and Ohio, you can stream Friends on Netflix or MAX.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter