The 'Friends' Cast Thought Rachel-Joey Romance Was Incestuous

Fans of popular television shows often have passionate reactions when characters are paired off, especially when those characters definitely should not be together. That's how pretty much everybody felt Joey and Rachel developed feelings for each other on Friends. It was just fans who felt this way, either. It turns out the cast was adamantly against the Joey-Rachel romance and even advocated against it behind the scenes. 

"When [creators Marta] Kauffman and [David] Crane first approached the cast in season eight with the idea of Joey falling in love with Rachel, everyone balked," Kelsey Miller revealed in her new book I'll Be There For You: The One About Friends. "[Matt] LeBlanc said it felt incestuous (especially uncomfortable after so many years of cultivating a brotherly bond with the female characters)," Miller explains.

Kevin S. Bright, the executive producer on Friends, spoke about this backstage debacle, as well, during a recent interview with Digital Spy. "In the beginning, Matt LeBlanc did not want to do that story," Bright said. "He was very firmly against it, saying that he’s Ross’ friend, and that the type of friend that Joey is would never go and take someone else’s girlfriend."

LeBlanc, who brought Joey to life for ten seasons on Friends, opposed the romantic pairing for many of the same reasons fans did. Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel, was also not a fan of the storyline. In her book, Miller writes that "Aniston wanted it to be made clear that Rachel was not in love with Joey, but was just attracted to him. It had to be a crush, and it had to be more funny than emotional, otherwise, this arc would go from risky to unwatchable."

As every Friends fan knows, though, the questionable romance did make it to the screen. Ultimately Joey and Rachel's shortlived relationship existed to keep Ross and Rachel apart until the end of the series. "Kauffman and Crane understood that the Joey-Rachel relationship would end before it really began," Miller writes in her book. "They would never have sex or say the L-word; that would be too much to recover from. Once they actually hooked up, the characters (like the audience) would be too weirded out, and preoccupied with Ross."

One silver lining that came out of the much-maligned romantic pairing? LeBlanc won his first Emmy for his performance in season 8. As Miller muses in I'll Be There For You: The One About Friends, LeBlanc’s “performance was so wrenching that it almost distracted from the ickiness of the story itself.” 

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