The love story that never happened on Friends: what Matthew Perry, the actor who played Chandler, had to say about it

Beloved Friends actor Matthew Perry has revealed that he had a crush on his co-star Jennifer Aniston and his attempt to ask her out didn’t go well.

Still enjoying significant cultural relevance across the globe nearly two decades after the last episode, the success of Friends can be attributed to the chemistry of its six main characters in particular.

In his latest autobiographical book, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, to be released on November 1, Perry confessed details of his relationship with Aniston, noting that the two had known each other since before Friends.

In the excerpt that appeared in The Times, which can be read below, Perry recalled an uncomfortable phone conversation he had with Jennifer Aniston at one point.

What Matthew Perry has recounted about his relationship with Jennifer Aniston

“We sat around the table and we all met for the first time. I mean, except for me and Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer and I had met through mutual acquaintances about three years before. I liked her and felt there could be something between us.

At the time, I had received two offers on the same day, one was Haywire, a show about the funniest homemade videos in America, and the other was about a sitcom. So I called Jennifer and said, “You’re the first person I wanted to tell this to.”

It was a bad idea. I could actually feel the ice forming on the receiver. Looking back, it was clear that this made her think I liked her too much or in the wrong way… and I made it worse when I asked her out on a date. She declined, but said she’d like to just be friends with me, and I was proud and said, “We can’t be friends!”

A few years later, ironically, we became friends. Fortunately, even though I was still attracted to her and thought she was great, from day one we were able to move past the awkwardness and focus on the fact that we were both getting the best job Hollywood had to offer,” Matthew Perry wrote.