With all the publicity surrounding the show of late, it s no surprise that some interesting stories are coming out of the woodwork, including one that says Matthew Perry and Courtney Cox, who play beloved married couple Chandler and Monica on the iconic show, are in fact related.
According to the genealogy website MyHeritage, the co-stars are 11th cousins and share family members William Osbern Haskell III and Ellen Haskell. The Haskell s were married and lived in England around 500 years ago and the connection is made through Cox s mother, Courteney Copeland, and Perry s father, John Bennett Perry.
Roi Mandel, the head of research at MyHeritage, told CNN: We went into this line very deeply, we checked every name. We found a lot of records that support it, and we have confidence that they are related.
Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing, joked that he doesn t hear from cast
He reunited with Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer on Friends: The Reunion which finally aired on Thursday
Lisa revealed the former co-stars still stay in touch and have a close bond after appearing on the sitcom together
Friends aired on NBC until 2004 and made stars out of its six main cast members
The one where we re surprised!
Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox played Friends, lovers, husband and wife and now we find out in real life that they are actually distant cousins according to ancestry experts. The Friends stars are 11th cousins according to research at the online genealogy website MyHeritage found.
They discovered that Perry and Cox share distant relatives William Osbern Haskell III and Ellen Haskell who were married and lived in England around 500 years ago. Ellen and her two sons emigrated from England to America in 1635. One son, Roger, is a direct ancestor of Courteney and the second son, William is a direct ancestor of Matthew.