David Schwimmer Reveals Why He Couldn’t Stand the ‘Friends’ Theme Song

David Schwimmer had strong feelings about the Friends theme song. The actor, who played Ross Geller for 10 years on the hit NBC sitcom, told the Making A Scene podcast that he was over the show’s opening tune, “I’ll Be There for You,” by the time the series ended in 2004.

Schwimmer explained that he never watched the show after it ended because he wanted to move on, and that the overplayed song got under his skin for years afterwards. “I’ll be really honest, there was a time, for quite a while, that just hearing the theme song would really — you know what I mean?” the actor said in the April 2025 interview.

“I just had that reaction. I just had heard it so many times,” he added. “And anytime you’d go on a show, or a talk show, or an interview, that would be your intro song. I just didn’t have the greatest response to it for a period of time.”

Schwimmer revealed that when his daughter, Cleo, began watching Friends a few years ago, he warmed up to the song once again after hearing her laughter as she watched. “My whole relationship to that song and to the show changed again," he said.

For 10 seasons, every episode of Friends opened with "I’ll Be There for You" by The Rembrandts. The opener featured Schwimmer and co-stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, and Matthew Perry dancing around a fountain. The Friends cast members also appeared in the band’s official music video for the song.

Schwimmer wasn’t the only Friends star who had issues with the song—and show’s famous fountain opener. During an appearance on The One Show, Aniston admitted, “No one was really a big fan of that theme song. We felt it was a little—I don’t know. Dancing in a pond? A fountain felt sort of odd.”

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