The Time Prince Harry Did Mushrooms at Courteney Cox’s House and Tried to Tell Her He Was a ‘Chandler’
Prince Harry was a Chandler. And not just because he and Matthew Perry have subjected us to the most obnoxious promotional book tours of the 2020s.
Harry binged the entire Friends catalog in 2013, trying to overcome panic attacks after his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. “I decided I was a Chandler,” he reveals in his memoir Spare. “Day after day, night after night, I sat around eating takeaway, watching Friends. People often speculated that I was clinging to my bachelor life because it was so glamorous. Many evenings I’d think: if only they could see me now. Then I’d go back to folding my underwear and watching ‘The One with Monica and Chandler’s Wedding.’”
Fast forward three years. Harry was visiting the U.S. in 2016, partying with a few friends (apparently, he was past the social anxiety at this point), and they ended up stumbling into Courteney Cox’s house. Cox was a friend of a friend, traveling on an acting job, and apparently didn’t mind if a royal or two sacked out on her couch. For a Chandler like the Duke of Sussex, “the idea of crashing at Monica’s was highly appealing.”
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But even better? Cox returned home unexpectedly and didn’t kick out Harry and his pals. Now he had a new dilemma: “I was still confused because she was Monica. And I was a Chandler. I wondered if I’d ever work up the courage to tell her. Was there enough tequila in California to get me that brave?”
Well, maybe not enough tequila. But there were other mind-altering substances on hand to help Harry overcome his shyness. Cox invited over a few friends, including Will Arnett, and soon it was a full-blown party. Harry was all over Arnett, pestering him to do the Lego Batman voice. Arnett obliged, and then “maybe to get rid of us,” he led Harry and pals to the kitchen. Arnett retrieved a soft drink from an open refrigerator where the eagle-eyed royal spotted “a huge box of black diamond mushroom chocolates.” Jackpot!
Harry and friends ingested the magic mushrooms by an outdoor firepit. Unfortunately, instead of manifesting his inner Chandler, he began seeing monsters in the form of a grinning garbage can in Courteney Cox’s bathroom. “Now the loo became a head too. The bowl was gaping at me, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes. It said: Aaah.” Sounds like a tripping Chandler to us.
As for Cox, she told Variety this week that, yes, Prince Harry did crash at her place. As for the hallucinogens? “Yes, (Harry’s story has) gotten back to me,” she says. “I’m not saying there were mushrooms! I definitely wasn’t passing them out.”
And while she heard the book was “really entertaining,” she hasn’t gotten around to reading Spare. Apparently, Monica has better things to do.
