On “Friends,” Matthew Perry nixed the Chandler cheating on Monica story

The iconic Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler could’ve been a lot like Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) if the late Matthew Perry hadn’t put a stop to a cheating storyline in “Friends.”

A one-episode “Friends” guest actor, Lisa Cash, shared with TMZ that she almost played a woman whom Chandler was written to have an affair with but before anything could be filmed, Perry had convinced the show’s writers to entirely axe the storyline because “the audience will never forgive him for cheating on Monica.”

Cash recalled the two-part season finale “The One In Vegas,” where Chandler and Monica argued about her having lunch with her longtime ex-boyfriend Richard (Tom Selleck). She said that originally Chandler ordered room service, and Cash was a hotel worker who would deliver his food: “We end up talking and laughing and connecting, and Chandler ends up cheating on Monica with my character.”

She said that both Perry and herself had rehearsed the scene but “the day before we were shooting in front of a live audience, I was told that [Perry] went to the writers and said the audience will never forgive him for cheating on Monica, which, he was probably right. That would have changed possibly the course of the show and of his character.”

In the episode, after their fight, Chandler and Monica end up planning to elope in a Las Vegas chapel but they quickly change their plans when they see the drunk and eternally messy Ross and Rachel beat them to the alter.