Friends fans may have forgotten Winona Ryder’s brief cameo as Rachel’s lesbian sorority sister Melissa and the actress was reportedly disappointed fans didn’t get to see more of the action

Friends fans may have forgotten one iconic cameo that featured a steamy smooch between Jennifer Aniston and Winona Ryder.

During one episode in season seven, Rachel met up with her old sorority friend who couldn’t remember their same sex snog from their college days. After Rachel leaned in to kiss her again, Winona’s character Melissa suddenly professed her love, but according to reports Ryder wasn’t entirely happy with the scene.

Winona was allegedly disappointed that fans didn’t get to see more of their full frontal kiss and said: “When I saw the episode, all you see is hair and you don’t see lips. I was kind of bummed out because we got a couple of chances to do some pretty nice kisses. She’s a very good kisser!”

At the time, Friends came under fire for the scene as some critics said that Rachel and Melissa’s kiss was insensitive to the LGBTQ+ community, because Melissa was a one off lesbian character used as a stunt for the popular sitcom series.

Rachel leaned in to kiss Melissa to prove a point (Image: NBC)
From 2001 to 2005, Ryder took a break from acting and her Friends cameo along with her role in Zoolander were the only jobs she took on that year. She later hosted Saturday Night Live but laid low for a few years before a career revival in 2006.

Melissa confessed her love for Rachel, which wasn’t reciprocated (Image: NBC)
Reports have said that Winona’s Friends episode, The One With Rachel’s Big Kiss, was one of the least watched episodes from season seven with just 16.3 million viewers. To compare, the season finale had 30.05 million viewers at the time it was aired.

Winona was disappointed with her on-screen smooch (Image: NBC)
Ryder’s role as Melissa was also her final TV cameo until her beloved role in the highly popular sci-fi franchise Stranger Things, which first aired back in 2016. Winona has had an incredibly Hollywood career, with roles in cult classic films such as Girl, Interrupted, Heathers, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands.

She is also known for dating Johnny Depp for many years and the duo starred alongside each other in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands. They were together from 1989 and parted ways back in 1993.

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