Friends writers joked about sex with stars, claims lawsuit

Male writers on the hit sitcom Friends joked about wanting to have sex with the female stars, according to a lawsuit filed by a former show assistant.

The scribes also questioned the sexuality of star David Schwimmer, who plays Ross, and joked about turning Matt LeBlanc’s character Joey into a serial rapist, it is alleged.

The hotly-disputed claims were made in a lawsuit filed in California by former writing assistant Amaani Lyle.

She said one of the writers boasted that he could have sex with Brad Pitt’s wife Jennifer Aniston, who plays Rachel.

“I would have to listen to comments about the sexual conduct many of the writers would like to do with Courteney Cox (Monica) and Jennifer Aniston,” the complaint said.

“They would make jokes about whether Courteney Cox was competently sexually servicing her boyfriend at the time, David Arquette.”

The sexual harassment complaint went on that the writers “would make jokes about David Schwimmer being gay”.

And they “discussed making… Joey a serial rapist and would discuss full scenes of how he would rape the women”.

Sometimes the writers would make cruel jibes about Cox’s widely-reported fertility problems, it is alleged.

The lawsuit, against the three writers and Bright, Kauffman, Crane Productions, was dismissed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in 2002, but partly reinstated last week by an appeals court.

Ms Lyle’s lawyer, Mark Weidmann, refused to say how much money his client was seeking but said similar cases had been settled for millions of dollars.

He said Ms Lyle “found her experiences very disturbing”.

The initial complaint also alleged that Ms Lyle had been sacked from the show because she was black and a woman.

That aspect of the lawsuit was not reinstated by the appeals court.

The court said there was “sufficient evidence” backing up the defendants’ claim that Ms Lyle was fired because she was unable to type fast enough to take notes at writers’ conferences.

The writers named in the lawsuit have all strongly denied the claims. Any talk of sex was necessary to the plot of the sometimes-raunchy comedy, said lawyer Adam Levin, defending.