David Schwimmer, best-known for playing Ross on 'Friends', hit headlines recently for an interview he did with The Guardian.
Schwimmer is currently on the promo trail for his new Sky One show 'Intelligence'.
The actor reflected much on the sitcom that made him a star in the interview. He also discussed how he pushed for his character's girlfriends to be women of colour.
He bemoaned the lack of diversity on the show, which the series developed quite a rep for.
His comment that "Maybe there should be an all-black Friends or an all-Asian Friends" has gained traction in particular.
Actress Erika Alexander, star of '90s sitcom 'Living Single', shared the interview. She questioned whether the 'Friends' star had ever heard of her show, which also followed six friends in New York.
"[Are you] seriously telling me you've never heard of #LivingSingle?" she wrote on Twitter. "We invented the template! [You're] welcome bro."
Schwimmer responded to the comment: "I was asked recently in an interview for The Guardian how I felt (for the thousandth time) about a reboot of Friends immediately following a conversation about diversity on the show, and so offered up other possibilities for a re-imagining of the show today. I didn't mean to imply Living Single hadn't existed or indeed hadn't come before Friends, which I knew it had.
"Please remember in an interview quotes are often pieced together and taken out of context, and then these quotes are re-purposed in other articles by other people who are trying to be provocative.
"I was a fan of Living Single, and was not implying Friends was the first of its kind. To my knowledge, Friends (which came out a year later) was inspired by Marta [Kauffman] & David [Crane]'s own lives and circle of friends living in NY in their twenties."
He concluded: "In any event, if my quote was taken out of context, it's hardly in my control. I assure you I meant no disrespect."
