Lisa Kudrow says Friends writers discussed fantasies about her co-stars

Lisa Kudrow has claimed that the predominantly male writing team on Friends discussed their "sexual fantasies" about her co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox.

While Kudrow, Aniston, Cox and their male co-stars David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry were all friends in real life while making the famed sitcom, The Comeback star noted that there was "definitely mean stuff going on behind the scenes".

During an interview with The Times, the 62-year-old explained that the 12-15 staff members, mostly men, who made up the show's writers' room could be "brutal" to the actors and discuss them inappropriately while coming up with story ideas.

"Don't forget we were recording in front of a live audience of 400, and if you messed up one of these writers' lines or it didn't get the perfect response they could be like, 'Can't the b**ch f**king read? She's not even trying. She f**ked up my line,'" she recalled. "And we know that back in the room the guys would be up late discussing their sexual fantasies about Jennifer and Courteney. It was intense."

Despite the writers' attitude, Kudrow didn't pay them much attention because most of their behaviour took place behind closed doors.

"Oh, it could be brutal, but these guys - and it was mostly men in there - were sitting up until 3am trying to write the show so my attitude was, 'Say what you like about me behind my back because then it doesn't matter,' " she stated, waving her hands in front of her face.

The behaviour of the Friends writing team was first exposed in a lawsuit in the early 2000s. Writers' assistant Amaani Lyle filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Television, claiming that she was subjected to sexual and racial harassment by the writers, who often made lewd jokes and obscene gestures. She alleged that she heard them discussing sleeping with Aniston and Cox.

Lyle lost her case, with the California Supreme Court deciding that their coarse and vulgar behaviour can be a necessary part of a creative work environment.

Friends ran from 1994 to 2004.