Yahoo Movies Brooke Shields recalls 'petulant' ex Andre Agassi breaking trophies over her Friends role
Brooke Shields is reflecting on her guest stint on Friends and the explosive reaction it triggered in her then-boyfriend, tennis player Andre Agassi.
Shields portrayed Erika, a woman who starts stalking Matt LeBlanc's Joey after becoming obsessed with his Days of Our Lives character, Dr. Drake Ramoray. In the 1996 episode, "The One After the Superbowl, Part 1," Joey decides to go on a date with her. Agassi was sitting in the audience at the time of filming, but stormed out during the scene. As she detailed in her 2014 memoir, There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me, Agassi then went home and smashed his tennis trophies in a rage.
"'Co-opted' gives him too much credit. It was petulant behavior," Shields told The New Yorker, responding to a question about Agassi "co-opting" a moment that was special to her. "Well, I guess you're right. It co-opted it for me emotionally, because all of a sudden then my focus went to him."
"In the scene, I'm supposed to lick Joey's fingers, because they're the hands of a genius, and I want to devour them, and I'm a nut," she explained. "He was cute — he was, like, 'I've washed my hands and they're all clean.' I was, like, 'I had a mint!'"
Brian D. McLaughlin/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images; JEAN-LOUP GAUTREAU/AFP via Getty Images Brooke Shields recalls her 'Friends' guest-starring role and Andre Agassi's violent reaction to it
According to Shields, Agassi "stormed out" of the studio after seeing Shields lick LeBlanc's fingers.
"He said, 'Everybody's making fun of me. You made a fool of me by that behavior.' I'm, like, 'It's comedy! What is the matter with you?'" Shields said. "I learned later that he was addicted to crystal meth at that point, so that irrational behavior I'm sure had something to do with that." Agassi wrote about his methamphetamine use in his 2009 autobiography.
Shields reiterated her past accounts of the situation by saying Agassi then went home and "smashed all his trophies" in rage. "Who wins for that? That's just — don't!" Shields said.
The star of The Blue Lagoon and Pretty Baby also talked about how the role helped her land a starring role in Suddenly Susan, thanks in part to her maniacal cackle she delivers in the Friends scene.
"What was so affirming about it was that, in the first take, they didn't want me to do the crazy laugh and the licking of his fingers," she said. "We had done it in rehearsal, and they said, 'It's too crazy. Don't do it,'" she added. "And I begged for it. 'It's so funny. It just makes her crazier. And she's pretty, so she needs to really be crazy.' And they were, like, 'No, no.' We did the first take, and it was fine. And then the second take, they scream, 'Shields! Put it back in!' All of a sudden, the energy changed, and all these men in suits started coming into the studio. The next day, I was asked if I wanted to do my own television show."
Read the full Shields interview at The New Yorker.
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