Joey Lawrence, 49, Makes Bold Claim About Iconic ‘Friends’ Character

Joey Lawrence claims that another famous TV "Joey" was based on his popular character from the sitcom Blossom. 

During an appearance on the Magical Rewind podcast, the '90s teen idol alleged that his Blossom character, Joey Russo, inspired the Friends character Joey Tribbiani. The Friends Joey was played by Matt LeBlanc, and both sitcoms aired on NBC in the 1990s.

"Joey Russo on the Blossom show was so successful that when they were creating Friends, they wanted a 25-year-old version of that," Lawrence recalled on the podcast. "I don't think [the Friends character's] name was even Joey Tribbiani. I think it was something else. And because Joey Russo was so successful, I think they changed it to Joey Tribbiani."

Lawrence also noted that both Joeys were popular with the ladies, which called for LeBlanc to do some homework before playing his womanizing character.

“All I remember is that Matt LeBlanc was sent to the Blossom stage, and he would sit up in the audience with a yellow notepad and take notes on how I portrayed Joey Russo, so that he could bring innocence to Joey Tribbiani,” Lawrence claimed. “So he could get away with his womanizing."

Lawrence’s story and timeline are slightly different than that of Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman. In 2021, Kauffman told the Write On podcast that the Joey character wasn’t originally supposed to be dim-witted. “We didn’t originally intend for Joey to be stupid, but Matt LeBlanc played stupid so well that it became part of the character,” she said.

LeBlanc, who played Joey Tribbiani from 1994 to 2004 and reprised the role in the spinoff sitcom, Joey, previously told The Hollywood Reporter that “everybody wanted to be friends” with his character, even though he came off as dim.

“Joey was that guy everybody wanted to hang out with,” the actor said in 2018. “Girls liked him. Guys liked him. For me, he was never 'dumb.' For me, he was always just incorrect. He had his own sort of parallel-universe stream of logic."

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