The One in Vegas: Matthew Perry’s Decision Saved Chandler from Cheating on Monica in ‘Friends’

Posted on: November 6, 2023, 09:42h.

Last updated on: November 6, 2023, 06:48h.

Corey Levitan Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas.

Friends fans remember the classic two-part Season 5 episode, The One in Vegas, as the one where Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Monica (Courteney Cox) decide to have a quickie Vegas wedding and, instead, catch a blotto Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) beating them to the altar “accidentally.” (Click here to read why the accidental drunken wedding is a common Las Vegas myth,)

In the original script, Chandler (Matthew Perry) would have done something to Monica (Courteney Cox) that couldn’t have stayed in Vegas. (Image: Warner Bros. TV)

What fans don’t realize is that the episode was nearly known primarily as the one where Chandler cheated on Monica.

Among the flurry of articles and tributes to Perry, who died October 28 in Los Angeles at age 54, was a TMZ report detailing how this shocking subplot would have gone. That’s had Perry not insisted that the writers change it, saving his character from making what fans probably would consider an unforgivable mistake.

What Happened in Vegas Almost Ruined ‘Friends’

The revelation was made by actress Lisa Cash, who was cast to play an attractive Caesars Palace room-service attendant who paid a visit to Chandler’s room after his huge blowout with Monica over her secretly having lunch with her ex-boyfriend, Richard (Tom Selleck).

After she lost what would probably have been a game-changing role for her career, Lisa Cash was recast by producers as a flight attendant interacting with Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) on the flight back to New York. (Image: Warner Bros. TV)

We end up talking and laughing and connecting, and Chandler ends up cheating on Monica with my character,” Cash told TMZ. “We had rehearsed it … and the day before we were supposed to shoot it in front of a live audience, I was told that [Perry] went to the writers and said the fans will never forgive [Chandler] for cheating on Monica.”

The cheating scene was deleted and Cash’s part — which could have been a game-changer for her career, considering how memorable it would have been in the Friends universe — was cut.

“They had that whole other thing with the Ross and Rachel ‘we were on a break,’ but Chandler and Monica weren’t on a break,” Cash said. “It was a decision that he was going to make to cheat on her in the moment, so I think it was smart (to cut it).

“That would have possibly changed the course of the show.”

As consolation for being so understanding, Cash was given the role of a flight attendant interacting in a different scene with Ross and Rachel.

“They were so nice for not completely cutting me out of the episode,” she said.