The central joke is revealed when Monica asks Will if he remembers Rachel Green (Aniston). Will’s eyes darken. He doesn’t just remember Rachel; he despises her with a passion that is both absurd and hysterical. Will reveals that he and Ross were the founding members of a secret high school club called “The I Hate Rachel Green Club.” The club’s sole purpose was to spread malicious rumors about Rachel, who was the popular, spoiled, and seemingly cruel head cheerleader.
Rachel, feeling a flicker of guilt, challenges Will to a dance-off to make amends. What follows is a cringe-comedy masterpiece: the athletic, cool Brad Pitt is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Will Colbert performs a series of uncoordinated, embarrassing dance moves (including “the sprinkler”) while Rachel effortlessly out-dances him. brad pitt friends episode
Will, played by Pitt, enters as a heavyset, angry, and deeply bitter man—a stark contrast to the chiseled movie idol we know. He is now a successful businessman who has lost a significant amount of weight, but he has clearly not lost his high school grudges. The central joke is revealed when Monica asks
He recounts a moment when, at a party, he complimented her Grateful Dead t-shirt. Rachel, being the popular mean girl, responded by shouting across the room: “Hey everybody! This guy likes the Grateful Dead! What a loser!” The entire party laughed at him, and he has carried that shame for over a decade. Will reveals that he and Ross were the
In the pantheon of great television guest stars, few moments are as perfectly timed, meta, and side-splittingly funny as Brad Pitt’s appearance on NBC’s Friends . Airing on November 22, 2001, during the show’s eighth season, the episode titled “The One with the Rumor” (Season 8, Episode 9) remains a high-water mark for the series.
The final punchline, however, belongs to Ross. After Will leaves, Rachel turns to Ross and realizes that Ross was the co-founder of the club. She asks if the hermaphrodite rumor is true. Ross, panicking, blurts out: “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this!” and kisses her passionately. It’s a classic Ross deflection, and it works—for a few seconds, at least. “The One with the Rumor” was a ratings juggernaut. It drew over 31.7 million viewers on its original broadcast, making it one of the most-watched episodes of Friends entire run. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Pitt lost to Anthony LaPaglia on Frasier ).