The Emmy-winning actress from Abbott Elementary voiced her opinions on the hit sitcom when hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL), as per IGV.

This came about when Brunson also took at SNL itself, “I wanted to be on SNL back in the day but the audition process seemed long,

So instead, I just created my own TV show, made sure it became really popular, won a bunch of Emmys and then got asked to host.”

She added how this was “so much easier, so much easier.”

Created by Brunson, the American mockumentary and sitcom was first released in 2021 and has just been renewed for a fourth season.

In her SNL speech, she explained what her show was about, whilst also throwing shade at Friends.

“It’s a network sitcom like, say, Friends. Except, instead of being about a group of friends, it’s about a group of teachers. Instead of New York, it’s in Philadelphia and instead of not having Black people, it does.”

Although Friends is viewed as one of the best sitcoms of all time, and perhaps even best TV show of all time, it has gained its fair share of criticism over the decades since its initial release in 1994.

Aisha Tyler who played Charlie Wheeler in season 9, voiced her opinions on the lack of diversity and the effect of her character in her life.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tyler shared what it was like being one of the only prominent and recurring black actors on the iconic show.

“It was a massive show, a global hit. To this day, people come up to me and go, ‘Charlie, Charlie’, or they just go, ‘Black girl from Friends‘.”

At the 2021 Friends reunion, it was highlighted that no black cast members had made an appearance.

Marta Kauffman, one of the show’s co-creators has considered the criticism surrounding the show, telling the Los Angeles Times that she has “learned a lot in the last 20 years.”

“Admitting and accepting guilt is not easy. It’s painful looking at yourself in the mirror. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know better 25 years ago.”

Kauffman then proceeded to donate $4 million to the African and African American studies department at Brandeis University, in which she used to study.

“It took me a long time to begin to understand how I internalized systemic racism.”

Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay in the sitcom, defended Kauffman’s choices by sharing her thoughts: “Well, I feel like it was a show created by two people who went to Brandeis and wrote about their lives after college.”

“They have no business writing stories about the experiences of being a person of colour.”