Well, here’s something you don’t read every day, an actor getting jealous of a furry co-star.
These are the latest claims made about “Friends” star David Schwimmer by a monkey trainer.
We understand how INSANE this all sounds, but bear with us, the monkey handler made a pretty intriguing argument.
Over a month ago, the original cast of the sitcom reunited for the “Friends: The Reunion” special on HBO Max.
Throughout the special, fans got to see the OG cast do a live table read, learned some funny BTS secrets from set and even found out what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling, such as, Matt LeBlanc dislocating his shoulder during a scene.
Schwimmer, who played the role of Ross Geller, took this opportunity to express his distaste for “Marcel the monkey.”
While their on-screen bond was very believable, it appears the feelings weren’t mutual once the cameras cut.
The actor revealed that he was NOT a fan of Marcel, and the primate was rather difficult to work with.
Actors, am I right?!?
During the reunion special he said, “Obviously it was trained and it had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time, but what inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out and it would get messed up because the monkey didn’t do its job right.”
Now, Marcel’s animal handler, Mike Morris, is calling Schwimmer ‘despicable’ for publicizing his distaste for the monkey.
In an interview with The Sun, Morris claims the monkey, who worked with Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman and served as the mascot for the Los Angeles Angels, only had issues when working with Schwimmer.
Morris says the monkey worked well with Jennifer Aniston and LeBlanc.
“The first couple episodes, David Schwimmer was pretty good with the monkeys,” Morris recently told The Sun. “After that, he seemed to get a little bitter about them being there. It made it harder to work with them.”
Morris continued, “A five-camera show is hard to work on anyways and if you have an actor that’s not very helpful, it makes it even harder.”
Schwimmer isn’t ‘monkeying’ around!
The animal handler believes the actor turned cold towards the monkey because it was getting more laughs than he was.
“The first couple episodes he was pretty friendly with the monkey and after that, the monkey was getting a lot of laughs,” Morris said, “and either it was throwing him off or getting a little jealous.”
What really grinds Morris’ gears is the resentment Schwimmer still has towards the monkey even after all of these years!
“Him still talking ill about the monkey all these years later seems pretty childish to me,” Morris told the outlet.
It’s important to note that one of the monkeys who played Marcel recently died of cancer.
“Schwimmer was talking ill of the dead when he made those comments,” Morris said. “I find it despicable for him to still be speaking ill of her.”
As Gwen Stefani put it, “this s*** is bananas!”
