Friends writer says Joey and Phoebe hooking up would've been a "mistake" (2024)

Friends writer David Crane has revealed why Phoebe and Joey's friendship never led to a romantic relationship.

During the 10-season run of the hit sitcom, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Ross (David Schwimmer) eventually found a way back to each other, while Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) got married and their relationship kept growing stronger with every season.

There was also that weird period when Rachel and Joey tried to make a go of it.

However, Phoebe and Joey never got romantically involved, as Phoebe found love in Mike (Paul Rudd), while Joey is, well, just Joey.

Related: Jennifer Aniston responds to Friends reunion rumours after huge Instagram cast selfie

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Crane has explained why the pair were never meant to be.

"It all would have been too tidy and too complete," Crane admitted. "When your goal is to keep the six characters in stories together, it would be really easy to go down that road but I think we all felt it would be a mistake."

He also explained that they had to be careful with developing the storylines for Rachel/Ross and Monica/Chandler as they didn't want to create similar "challenges" for all of them.

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Crane added: "Because we'd done Ross and Rachel we had to give Monica and Chandler another set of challenges.

"And so their whole journey of how they ended up together and having babies it needed to be different. I think that's the biggest challenge of doing a show for 10 years."

Elsewhere, Rachel star Jennifer Aniston recently revealed that she and her fellow cast mates are "trying" to make a reunion happen.

Friends airs daily on Comedy Central in the UK and is also streaming on Netflix.

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