‘Burn in hell’: ‘Friends’ actor Jane Sibbett reveals abuse she received for playing a lesbian
Friends recently turned 30 years old, so it’s time to look back at one of the things the show got very right: the lesbian relationship between Carol and Susan.
Jane Sibbett, who played Ross’ ex-wife Carol on the show, shared some thoughts about how groundbreaking the same-sex pairing was in light of Friends’ 30th anniversary. Bear in mind that the show began in 1994, and LGBTQ+ relationships were far from normalized on the small screen at that time. Unfortunately, as a result, Sibbett received a lot of backlash for playing the role of a gay woman.
The actress spoke to British tabloid newspaper The Sun (arguably not the best choice, considering their long history of homophobia, but still) about what happened once she was cast in the show:
“I would say there was 95% support, but once I had flown to Canada to shoot a Disney movie and a child was yelling at me out of a school window. He was shouting, ‘Go home, American f*g’ and I just went, ‘Wow, wrong on so many levels, dude. Come down here and have a conversation with me’. Then I had a woman from my old church call me up… and [she] proceeded to [tell] me that I was going to burn in hell.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Sibbett’s father didn’t support her, either. The actress remembered:
“It caused stress in my own family. We had a big situation with my father who wouldn’t watch the show. Thankfully he came around to it in the end. It was heartbreaking that he wouldn’t watch it. He would hold a bible study group at the time it aired to ensure his friends wouldn’t see it either. It took my godfather writing a letter to him saying how proud he was of me for the wedding scene that cracked it for my father.”
Thankfully, she and her father were able to heal the “wound” before he passed away, and Sibbett remains “grateful” to have played the role of Carol. “It was groundbreaking for a lesbian character on TV but also for how Carol and Ross handled divorce and co-parenting without fighting. It was a gift,” she said.
This isn’t actually the first time Sibbett has told the “burn in hell” story. She’s always made it clear that playing a gay character on TV in the ’90s was an incredibly difficult job, one that highlighted the terrifying danger LGBTQ+ people faced every day. In 2020, she remembered the backlash with news.com.au, but also emphasized how “love always ages well.” Though it’s fair to say not all of Friends deserves that kind of praise, Carol and Susan’s relationship was genuinely good. Sibbett and Jessica Hecht, who played Susan, did a great job making us care about the characters.
Sibbett said that she sometimes received letters from “people in conservative districts” who spoke about coming out to their parents after seeing Carol and Susan’s relationship on TV. But Sibbett’s “personal highlight” was something a man told her while presenting an award for Friends. According to her, he said, “If I had had Carol and Susan as my role models growing up, I wouldn’t have tried to commit suicide so many times. Thank you for being courageous with your career and showing that love is the most important thing for me.”
Happy 30th, Carol and Susan.
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