- Chrissie Hynde, guest star on Friends, reflects on her role in a popular season two episode
- Hynde revealed her mixed feelings about the fame from her appearance on the sitcom
- She noted the unexpected impact on her privacy, despite enjoying the experience with the cast
When The Pretenders icon Chrissie Hynde rocked up to play Phoebe’s Central Perk rival on Friends, she couldn’t have foreseen the consequences.
The music artist, 74, featured in season two episode, The One with the Baby on the Bus, as Stephanie Schiffer, the singer trying to take Phoebe’s (Lisa Kudrow) turf.
The 1995 episode is fondly remembered for both her iconic rendition of Angel of the Morning and, of course, her Smelly Cat duet with the kooky masseuse.
Still in its early days, the show was still building towards the heights of its popularity and, unbeknownst to her when she accepted the gig, Hynde unintentionally got swept up in it.
Speaking to The Guardian about her memorable role on the show, she said: ‘I’d never heard of it, but Warners were putting out an album to accompany this new show and asked me for a song, Angel of the Morning.’
She continued: ‘Then Friends asked me if I could sit in the background in a coffee shop playing it. I got to go to LA for a week and see my friend but I didn’t know they’d written a whole part for me.
‘Then Friends was on the cover of every American magazine. I thought: “Oh f**k, this is gonna be big”.’
Praising the cast – Lisa, Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), David Schwimmer (Ross), Courtney Cox (Monica), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and Matt LeBlanc (Joey) – as ‘really nice’, she did caveat the experience.
She explained: ‘I always regretted it because until then I could take my kids to school and nobody knew who I was. Afterwards, all the kids were saying: “Your mom’s on Friends!”‘
The public-facing aspect of the craft has always been difficult for the chart-topping musician to deal with.
In one incident, she told the publication, she ‘sat on her bed and cried’ when she found out her face would be on a billboard in Shepherds Bush.
‘Some people have the personality for that: Paul McCartney is great at being a Beatle. I don’t! I’ve never got used to it. It always freaks me out, and I’m not very gracious,’ she said.
In the end, her favourite method of fan interaction is if someone just ‘nods or gives a thumbs up’.
The mammoth sitcom had countless cameos from famous faces over its 10-season run, including Brad Pitt, Jennifer Coolidge, Hugh Laurie, Danny Devito, Isabella Rossellini and Winona Ryder – to name just a few.
Tragically, UK fans were hit with a brutal blow when Netflix recently announced it would be removing all ten seasons of the hit sitcom.
It will exit the streamer on December 30, so you just have a couple of weeks to make the most of it before we bid adieu.
There is currently no word on where it will next be available, although many are holding out hope it will land on HBO Max in the UK in 2026.
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