The Rachel Scene On Friends That Went Too Far

Rachel Greene is one of the most beloved characters on "Friends," but is she a good friend? According to Vanity Fair, NBC originally offered the role to Courteney Cox, who wanted and eventually got to play Monica Geller, after reportedly offering it to Téa Leoni, who chose to pursue NBC's other sitcom "The Naked Truth" instead (via E! Online). Jennifer Aniston was the lucky star to land the part of Rachel Greene, who was the last "Friends" character to be cast, as revealed during the show's recent HBO Max reunion special. During "Friends: The Reunion," the series' producers also admitted that in the wrong hands, Rachel would have been very "unlikable," and it took so long to find the perfect person to portray her because they feared viewers wouldn't warm up to her (via Marie Claire).

Though Aniston did make Rachel a character millions of fans across the world love, there's a lot about her that isn't so great. For one, Rachel is a pretty horrible roommate. She barely cooks, doesn't help clean up, and refuses to move out of the apartment even when Monica wants to leave and live with her boyfriend Chandler (Matthew Perry). Rachel was a bully in high school and pretty self-centered as an adult — and who could forget the time she lost Ross' (David Schwimmer) pet monkey Marcel because she didn't want to miss her soap opera?

Additionally, at the very start of the series, Rachel leaves her fiancé Barry (Mitchell Whitfield) at the altar, and she later has an affair with him while he's married to Mindy (Jennifer Grey and Jana Marie Hupp in different appearances), Rachel's longtime best friend who served as the maid of honor in her cancelled wedding to Barry. Later in the show, Rachel flies to England and inadvertently breaks up Ross' wedding to Emily (Helen Baxendale). And in a totally cringey storyline, she also hooks up with Ross' best friend Joey (Matt LeBlanc). 

However, these moments pale in comparison to something terrible Rachel does to Monica — in a "Friends" scene that simply goes too far.

Over the course of the series' run, Rachel does some things to her best friend Monica that aren't very best-friendly. For example, in Season 2, when the pair visit the set of the movie "Outbreak 2: The Virus Takes Manhattan" while searching for Ross' monkey, they spot actor Jean-Claude Van Damme. Monica reveals to Rachel that she has a huge crush on Van Damme but is too nervous to talk to him; Rachel approaches him, acting as if she'll put in a good word for Monica, and ends up securing a date with the movie star herself. Elsewhere, in a flashback scene to the 1980s, Rachel kisses Chandler while knowing Monica was crushing on him. But the worst thing Rachel did took place years later, when she upstaged Monica's engagement to Chandler.

In the Season 7 episode "The One with Monica's Thunder," Rachel starts feeling lonely because Monica has found her person and she still hasn't, especially considering all the on-again, off-again nonsense she's been through with Ross. On the night of a planned outing to celebrate the newly engaged couple's news, Rachel goes back to Ross and starts kissing him, planning a "bonus" one-night stand night with him. Monica opens her apartment door to see her brother kissing Rachel in the hall. She accuses the exes of stealing all of the attention by reuniting on what was supposed to be "her" big night. For Monica, this was the Rachel move that really went too far — and fans feel similarly. 

"[She] kissed Ross the night of Monicas engagement, bad friend, trash person," Twitter user @chloesaphine wrote. Another user tweeted, "[Rachel] made Monica's engagement party all about her by kissing Ross in the hallway where anyone could walk in. I just — she's the WORST friend."

While that scene has gone down in history as one of Rachel's worst moments, she later one-ups Monica at her own wedding. Just before Monica and Chandler's wedding, Phoebe discovers a discarded positive pregnancy test in the trashcan of Monica and Chandler's bathroom. She believes that it's Monica's — with Ross eventually believing it too — but when Monica clears the air and says she isn't expecting, Phoebe makes a snap decision and pretends she is to cover for Rachel. Later on, Rachel takes a pregnancy test ... during the wedding reception, when Monica is supposed to be celebrating. It's a touching moment for sure, but it's also another instance of Rachel taking things too far and pulling the attention onto herself. 

Many "Friends" fans agree that Rachel could have gone about this differently and not overstepped on Monica and Chandler's special day. For starters, she's living with Joey when this all happens, so why couldn't she have taken the pregnancy test at her own apartment and prevented the hullabaloo in the first place? Couldn't Rachel have confessed to the rest of the friends, minus Monica and Chandler, before things got out of hand and asked them not to talk about it until after the wedding? Sure, she'd have to make some excuses to explain why she's not drinking alcohol, but it seems a much better and easier solution than turning your best friend's wedding into a night about you.

"Rachel is a terrible friend.... first she hooks up with Claude Van Damme when Monica told her she liked him then she kisses Ross on Monica engagement night and she's pregnant on Monica wedding day. Thunder stealer," one "Friends" fan tweeted. 

Though Monica isn't upset with Rachel about what happens on her wedding day, a detail that baffles fans to this day, the icing on the spotlight-stealing cake is the fact that when Rachel gives birth to her daughter, she names her Emma — the name Monica wanted to name her daughter one day. "How is it not more discussed how horrible Rachel was in the moment that Monica said her future girl's name would be Emma and Rachel jumps on it?" Twitterer @heylookitsjoc wrote.

Yikes! With "Friends" like these...