Friend’s Monkey Trainer Is Not Happy With David Schwimmer

Aside from finding out that Rachel and Ross were digging each other IRL as well as on-screen during last month’s highly anticipated Friends reunion, we were just as shocked to find out that David Schwimmer actually wasn’t too fond of his on-screen pal Marcel the monkey.

Although it seemed like a match in primate heaven, David revealed that he and Marcel didn’t get along too well when the cameras stopped rolling. Chatting about why he had such a dislike for the monkey David said:

“Here is my problem: The monkey, obviously, was trained. It had to hit its mark and do its thing right at the perfect time. What inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out, and it would get messed up because the monkey didn’t do its job right. So we would have to reset, we’d have to go again, because the monkey didn’t get it right.”

But now animal handler Mike Morris is hitting back at David’s comments calling them ‘despicable’. Adamant that nothing David said is true about the monkeys he trains, speaking with The Sun Mike said:

“They didn’t do any of that. None of it is true, when I was there none of that ever happened”

“People would laugh at the monkey and I think he got jealous because it wasn’t him getting the laughs.”

“He seemed to get a little bitter about them being there after that”

Mike also explained that it was more than just one monkey who played the part of Marcel. Sadly, one of those animal actors passed away in recent years, with Mike saying that David is now “talking ill of the dead”.

• David Schwimmer
• friends
• telly