Friends' Rachel and Monica Were Grossed Out When Kissing Van Damme

The success of Friends is indisputable: throughout the years of its existence, the show was consistently having insane ratings, and the audience only kept growing.

Many people still rewatch it on a regular basis as their comfort or nostalgia series, and everyone has a few episodes they love the most.

Among 236 total episodes, one stands out the most: The One After the Superbowl. It was and still is the most-watched episode of Friends — partially thanks to the sheer number of cameos it has.

It starred Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Chris Isaak, and Jean-Claude Van Damme… And the latter made it worse for everyone involved.

Van Damme proved to be extremely difficult to work with and caused a lot of trouble for the crew. He arrived on set four hours later and refused to shoot his scenes for some obscure reason.

He randomly demanded someone bring him Cocoa Puffs. He came completely unprepared and behaved arrogantly which annoyed everyone.

Warren Littlefield, the former president of NBC Entertainment, was so frustrated with him that in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he even claimed that working with Ross' monkey was easier than working with Van Damme.

But his late arrival, unpreparedness, and demands were not the worst part. The worst part was the way he treated the female leads, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox.

In the Superbowl episode, Van Damme had kissing scenes with both Rachel and Monica — and he managed to disgust them both during the shooting.

The kissing scene involving Rachel was the first. At one point, Jennifer Anniston approached the director, Michael Lembeck, and asked if he could stop Van Damme from putting his tongue in her mouth while shooting the scene.

Lembeck was surprised that it even happened, so he spoke to Van Damme and thought it was over… Which it wasn't.

As the next kissing scene was being shot, Courteney Cox came to Lembeck and told him the same thing: that Jean-Claude was tongue-kissing her, too.

"I couldn't believe it! I had to tell him again, but a little firmer," Michael shared, still appearing dazzled that such a conflict came up twice in a row.

"Jennifer told me about it and I remember telling her that maybe he doesn't understand this isn't the movies. But we asked him several times," recalls his colleague, Kevin Bright, supporting Lembeck's claim.

While The One After the Superbowl remains the most popular Friends episode of all time, the story behind it was not as great as the episode itself.

Jennifer Anniston and Courteney Cox were disgusted by Van Damme's behavior, and the crew had a hard time working with the star, too.

What's also showing is that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Van Damme himself refused to comment on the situation altogether, apparently having nothing to say about it even years later.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter