Friends shocker: You won’t believe this bizarre Friends cast connection

When it comes to iconic Friends couples, few can compete with Monica and Chandler. Sure their romance might not have been as flashy as Ross and Rachel’s iconic will-they-won’t-they dynamic, but Monica and Chandler were truly the glue holding the group together and enjoyed one of the show’s healthiest relationships over the course of the show’s ten seasons.

While Ross and Rachel’s dynamic was iconic, there was something special about the organic development of Monica and Chandler’s relationship which started as a shared friendship and evolved into a romantic relationship as the years went by. And let’s not forget about all the iconic moments they brought us over the years as well.

From “The One Where Everyone Finds Out” which gifted us with the iconic “They don’t know we know they know” moment as the group discovered their relationship to their two-part wedding event and eventual growth of their family, the pair were truly couple goals. Perhaps it’s for this reason why it’s so shocking to discover the actors who played the iconic couple actually happen to be related in the most unexpected of ways!

Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox relationship

As it turns out Friends stars Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox are more than just co-stars. According to genealogists, Perry and Cox are actually family! No, your eyes are not deceiving you, it turns out Cox and Perry are actually distant cousins. (Enter “Oh my God! to be read in the voice of Janice!)

In a report released by CNN in May 2021, researchers at the online genealogy website MyHeritage have discovered Cox and Perry are eleventh cousins linked by a pair of distant relatives.

According to the report, the connection comes from Cox’s mother, Courteney Copeland, and Perry’s father, John Bennett Perry via an ancestral connection that dates back several centuries. As CNN reports:

"They discovered that Perry and Cox share distant relatives William Osbern Haskell III and Ellen Haskell, who were married and lived in England around 500 years ago. Ellen and her two sons emigrated from England to America in 1635. One son, Roger, is a direct ancestor of Courteney, and the second son, William, is a direct ancestor of Matthew."

As the genealogists point out it’s actually not uncommon to find distant familiar connections between individuals when going back so many generations. Still, this is one piece of Friends trivia we have to confess we didn’t see coming and almost wish we could erase from memory.