10 Biggest Friends Urban Legends
No, Rachel wasn't ever going to die in childbirth.
A TV show as phenomenally successful and beloved as Friends was always going to invite intense discussions, debate, and speculation among fans and critics alike.
More than 15 years after it went off the air, the "Were Ross and Rachel on a break?" argument still rages on, and the show's myriad theories, myths, and urban legends continue to circulate.
While some of the show's seemingly apocryphal rumours have actually been confirmed to be true - namely that Bruce Willis only appeared in his Emmy-winning guest role because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry - others have either been flatly disproven or remain scarcely believable at best.
From allegedly planned storylines that actually never were, to ludicrous fan theories which have been patently shot down, and bizarre myths which spread like wildfire thanks to social media, these are collectively the urban legends which nevertheless crystallised in the public consciousness.
It's of course great fun to dig into what might've been and the general creative process behind the show, but fans have generally given these supposed truths far more weight than they actually deserve...
10. Ross & Rachel Weren't Originally Going To Get Back Together
The show's series finale of course concluded with Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) getting off the plane headed to Paris and deciding to reunite with Ross (David Schwimmer), seemingly for keeps.
It was a classically happy ending, yet ever since the episode aired in 2004, rumours have swirled that this wasn't actually the original intended outcome, and that another ending where Ross and Rachel didn't get together had also been shot.
But in a more recent interview, co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane confirmed that though they briefly mulled over a scenario where Ross and Rachel's future was left ambiguous, they never seriously considered - let alone shot - any other ending for the show:
"It's not a show about grays. Let's deliver not just what the audience wants, but what we want, which was to see them finally together."
As for the whole alternate ending myth? The duo revealed on the finale's DVD commentary that they actually instigated this one themselves, for fear that the live studio audience present for the shoot would leak the ending and spoil it for everyone else.
So no, there isn't a bleaker ending sat on a dusty studio hard drive somewhere.