JEN’S BLOOD FEUD TORPEDOES FRIENDS REUNION!
Why she hates sitcom creator Marta Kauffman
JENNIFER ANISTON’S holding up the longawaited Friends sitcom reunion because of a boiling blood feud with the show’s creator, Marta Kauffman, insiders say.
The rift exploded in 2003 when Marta refused to back the cast’s efforts to get a huge chunk of the series’ profits — that later made Jen, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer megamillionaires.
“It’s the elephant in the room that won’t go away until they’ve mended fences,” snitches an insider. “There are deep-seated issues and Jen is known to carry a grudge against Marta for not supporting the cast’s profit percentage, which made them all extremely rich.
“She felt betrayed by Marta and she’s avoided her ever since.”
Courteney is trying to convince Jen to just “let it go. She’s suggesting they get together over dinner to work this out.”
The cast is in talks to get back together with Marta and cocreator David Crane for a special program on HBO Max, which gets exclusive streaming rights to the show’s 236 episodes in 2020 after they stop streaming on Netflix.
“Listen, we would love to be there for something,” Jen hinted on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last summer. “But we don’t know what that something is. So, we’re just trying. We’re working on something.”
She also urged fans: “Stay excited! And possibly something will happen.”
Meanwhile, sources tattle Matthew’s longtime battle with addiction and fragile health is also a stumbling block!
The 50-year-old was so weakened by his struggle with booze and pills, he nearly died in August and later said he spent three months recovering in the hospital.
“Matthew was battling infections and felt like he was close to slipping away,” a source says. “Now he’s been told to devote ALL his energy to regaining his health — or else!”
But sources say Jen, with a Golden Globe nomination for Apple TV’s The Morning Show, is “doing just fine and doesn’t need this Friends reboot — but the others do!”