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Brooke Shields Says Andre Agassi Was 'Petulant' in Response to Her Licking Matt LeBlanc's Hand on 'Friends'

"He said I made him look like a fool," Shields recalled, describing how her ex smashed his tennis trophies "in a rage"

Phillip Faraone/Getty, Rob Kim/Getty
Phillip Faraone/Getty, Rob Kim/Getty

According to Brooke Shields, her guest appearance on a 1996 episode of Friends triggered a destructive moment by her then-husband Andre Agassi.

Shields guest-starred as Erika, an off-kilter super fan of Joey (Matt LeBlanc) who believed Joey was actually Dr. Drake Ramoray, the fictional character he played in Days of Our Lives. The actress's multi-episode arc included a scene where she licked Joey's hand — a setup that apparently angered her tennis champ spouse.

"He said I made him look like a fool by licking Joey's fingers and he got in his car and drove all the way to Vegas. Once there, he smashed all of his tennis trophies, destroying them in a rage," Shields, now 57, first shared in her 2014 memoir There Was a Little Girl.

More than a decade later, Shields (and the world) learned that Agassi's erratic behavior had resulted from hjis addiction to crystal meth, which the athlete revealed — while opening up about his and Shields' troubled relationship — in his 2009 autobiography Open.

Related:Brooke Shields' Bombshell: How Andre Agassi Told Her He Was a Meth Addict

In a recent conversation with the New Yorker, Shields revisited the marital fallout she experience while filming her Friends role.

"Andre was in the audience supporting me," she recalled, "and he stormed out. 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?'"

Brian D. McLaughlin/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
Brian D. McLaughlin/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Despite the scene's negative impact on Shields' and Agassi's marriage, it ultimately helped Shields land her starring role in the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, which aired from 1996 to 2000. Still, the joy was dampered by her ex-husband's behavior.

"It was petulant behavior," Shields told the New Yorker. "It co-opted it for me emotionally, because all of a sudden then my focus went to him."

Related:Brooke Shields Discusses Being Sexualized During Early Career in Pretty Baby Doc Trailer: 'I Survived'

Shields delves into her tumultuous relationship with Agassi, now 52, in her two-part Hulu documentary Pretty Baby.

While speaking about the project, Shields recently told PEOPLE she and Agassi have not been in touch in the 14 years since the release of Open — though she does give her ex credit for helping her separate from her mother and manager Teri Shields, who was also a lifelong alcoholic before she died in 2012.

Shields says that, "to this day," her therapist tells her, "I will always be thankful to Andre because he helped you separate from your mother lovingly."

Looking back she says, "We understood each other's trajectory with regards to being famous — or infamous — at such a young age."

Michael Schwartz
Michael Schwartz

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Shields also looks back on her role Friends as "affirming."

While the show's producers went back and forth about her "nut" character's "crazy laugh" and the finger-licking in deference to his character's surgical excellence, Shields told the New Yorker that her insistence on those details ended up being career-altering.

"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!'" she said. "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."

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