Brooke Shields reveals ex-husband Andre Agassi Was Inexplicably Jealous Over Her ‘Friends’ Scene with Matt LeBlanc

In 1996, child actress Brooke Shields had mostly been known for her 80s roles in The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, and of course her iconic Calvin Klein jean ads. But by this point she was striving to prove herself as a more mature thespian with serious acting chops, and comedic timing. Which is why, when she appeared in the star-studded Friends Super Bowl episode that year (that also featured Julia Roberts), she was excited to play a stalker to Matt LeBlanc’s Joey.

However, as she reveals in a new interview, her boyfriend at the time, Tennis champ Andre Agassi, who later became her husband, was so insecure in his masculinity, that he displayed toxic traits, and even flew into a jealous rage upon witnessing her filming that iconic finger-licking scene with LeBlanc. 

“In the scene, I’m supposed to lick Joey’s fingers,” she tells the New Yorker,  “because they’re the hands of a genius, and I want to devour them, and I’m a nut. [Matt LeBlanc] was cute—he was, like, ‘I’ve washed my hands and they’re all clean.’ I was, like, ‘I had a mint!’”

But for Agassi, who was there in the studio audience on the day of taping, he felt that his girlfriend doing her job as an actress was somehow threatening to his masculinity, and threw a temper tantrum. 

She recalls, “Andre was in the audience supporting me, and he stormed out. He said, ‘Everybody’s making fun of me. You made a fool of me by that behaviour.’ I’m, like, ‘It’s comedy! What is the matter with you?’”

She then says he went back to their home and “smashed all of his trophies” in response. 

While Agassi, whom Brooke was married to from 1997 to 1999,  hasn’t responded to this particular interview, he has admitted in the past that this event did happen as she tells it. In 2009, he released an autobiography entitled Open, where he wrote about the Friends incident.

“Of course I’ve watched Brooke kiss men onstage before. […] This is different. This is over the line. I don’t pretend to know where the line is, but hand licking is definitely over it,” he wrote at the time, per USA Today. 

After smashing the trophies, he wrote, “Hour later I open my eyes. I survey the damage as if someone else is responsible — and it’s true. It was someone else. The someone who does half the [expletive] I do.”

In the New Yorker interview, Brooke says that his rage was probably fuelled by his much-divulged crystal meth addiction. “I learned later that he was addicted to crystal meth at that point, so that irrational behaviour I’m sure had something to do with that,” she said.

“It was petulant behavior,” she recalled of his tantrum. “It co-opted [the moment] for me emotionally, because all of a sudden then my focus went to him.”

Petulant and insecure men aside, Brooke still managed to come out on top of the situation, because it was that one guest appearance that led her to be offered her own TV show, the 90s classic sitcom Suddenly Susan.

Telling the outlet how the scene with LeBlanc was supposed to go down, she reveals that she wanted all along to cackle maniacally like a psychopath, which made it into the final cut, but she was at first denied permission by the studio execs.

“I throw my head back in this cackle,” she explained. “We had done it in rehearsal, and they said, ‘It’s too crazy. Don’t do it.’ 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.’”

She continued, “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.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s how it’s done. Recently, Brooke also opened up about abuse she endured at the hands of a Hollywood exec, and how she is now choosing to share her story to help other women.