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- Marcel's trainer, Mike Morris, spoke out to defend the monkey for the first time.
- Marcel the monkey appeared in eight episodes in the first season of "Friends."
- Schwimmer said in the reunion special: "It was time for Marcel to … to, f— off."
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
The trainer of Marcel the monkey, who starred in "Friends," called Ross Geller actor David Schwimmer "jealous" and "despicable" in an interview with The Sun.
Marcel the monkey appeared in eight episodes in the first season of the hit series as the pet of Schwimmer's Ross before being written off the show. The primate was actually played by two Capuchin monkeys, Katie and Monkey.
In the recent "Friends: The Reunion" special on HBO, Schwimmer complained that Marcel missed the mark many times, making him hard to work with.
He explained: "What inevitably began to happen was we would all have choreographed bits kind of timed out, and it would get messed up because the monkey didn't do its job right.
"So we would have to reset, we'd have to go again because the monkey didn't get it right."
He also did not like that the animal ate food on his shoulder.
The 54-year-old actor said, "So the monkey would be sitting on my shoulder, take some grubs, break them in half - the squirming live grub, they ate it, and then it would just go like that (put its hands on me).
"It was time for Marcel to ... to, f--- off."
Courtesy of HBO Max
Marcel's trainer, Mike Morris told The Sun in an interview published Monday that it was "despicable for [Schwimmer] to still be speaking ill of [Marcel]" when one of the Capuchins, Monkey, had passed away last year.
"Schwimmer was fine with the monkeys for the first couple of episodes and happy to be there," Morris said. "But people would laugh at the monkey and I think he got jealous because it wasn't him getting the laughs. He seemed to get a little bitter about them being there after that.
"And of course the monkeys didn't like working with him after he turned on them."
He added: "My colleague who also worked on the show says that people would laugh at the monkey and throw Schwimmer off.
"He's not the kind of actor who can improvise."
This is not the first time Schwimmer has spoken out against the monkey. In 1995, the "Friends" actor told Entertainment Weekly, "I hate the monkey. I wish it were dead."
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The monkey trainer told The Sun that he did not speak out before because he felt it was unprofessional to do. He said, "But it's kind of bad that he is still talking about the monkey this many years after the show ended. It was one season over 25 years ago, it's time to let it go.
"It's almost like he's still got a monkey on his back. Katie can't speak for herself so that's why I'm talking out for her."
The other cast members did not have problems with Marcel but Courtney Cox, who played Monica, admitted in the reunion that the monkey had scared her. Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston said that she "loved" the monkey and Matt LeBlanc said on an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" that he "got along great with it."