Actress Quinta Brunson Calls Out Friends For Having ‘No Black Characters’

It follows the lives of six adults in Manhattan as they live, work and love.

Full of quotable lines and memorable scenes, it continues to attract a new generation of fans each year. Yet despite its popularity, Friends has faced its fair share of criticism…

Friends is one of the most popular sitcoms – but it’s faced its fair share of criticism. Credit: NBC

The sitcom has faced a backlash for only featuring non-white actors in smaller roles.

Aisha Tyler played Charlie Wheeler – a palaeontologist who was a love interest to both Joey and Ross – in season nine of the show.

Although she had an important role during her brief tenure in the series, Tyler has since revealed that fans sometimes refer to her as the ‘Black girl from Friends‘.

She told Entertainment Weekly: “It was a massive show, a global hit. To this day, people come up to me and go, ‘Charlie, Charlie’, or they just go, ‘Black girl from Friends‘.”

Tyler was also the only Black character to be given a recurring role on the show.

Aisha Tyler says fans still refer to her as the ‘Black girl from Friends’. Credit: NBC

Criticism was again aimed at Friends when it was pointed out that in the 2021 reunion, no Black cast members made an appearance – such as Phil Lewis who played Chandler’s boss and Gabrielle Union, another love interest whom both Ross and Joey shared (as noted by Grazia).

One of the show’s co-creators, Marta Kauffman, has since addressed the backlash surrounding the show, telling the Los Angeles Times: “I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years.

“Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better 25 years ago.

“It took me a long time to begin to understand how I internalised systemic racism.”

Kauffman proceeded to donate $4 million (£3.2m) to fund an endowed chair for the African and African American studies department at the university she studied at.

Marta Kauffman has addressed the backlash surrounding Friends. Credit: Alamy

Meanwhile, Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe in the sitcom, has defended Kauffman and co-creator David Crane.

She told The Daily Beast: “Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college.

“They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of colour.”

Jennifer Aniston has added to this, saying a ‘whole generation’ now finds Friends offensive.

But it’s not just people who worked on the show who are sharing their thoughts on the lack of diversity in the sitcom.

Abbott Elementary‘s Quinta Brunson recently joined the list of many illustrious celebrities to host Saturday Night Live (SNL) and made her feelings clear.

She recalled how she auditioned to be on the long-running entertainment show but was unsuccessful.

Brunson said: “I wanted to be on SNL back in the day but the audition process seemed long – so instead, I just created my own TV show, made sure it became really popular, won a bunch of Emmys and then got asked to host.

“So much easier, so much easier.”

Brunson proceeded to break down what her show Abbott Elementary is about – which is when she took aim at Friends.

She continued: “It’s a network sitcom like, say, Friends. Except, instead of being about a group of friends, it’s about a group of teachers.

“Instead of New York, it’s in Philadelphia and instead of not having Black people, it does.”

Quinta Brunson has taken aim at Friends for not having any Black cast members. Credit: NBC.