Shields plays a woman obsessed with Matt LeBlanc’s character, Joey, on 1996’s “The One After the Superbowl.”

Brooke Shields on how her Friends episode, which features her ‘licking a guy’s fingers,’ changed her career

Shields plays a woman obsessed with Matt LeBlanc's character, Joey, on 1996's "The One After the Superbowl."

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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June 6, 2026 4:00 p.m. ET

Brooke Shields went all out on 'Friends'. Credit: Brian D. McLaughlin/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty

- Brooke Shields' part in a 1996 episode of NBC's *Friends* was a big deal in her career, she said.

- The funny role allowed audiences to see her in a different way, separate from her previous work as a model and dramatic actress.

- Shields credits the part for landing her the starring role in the sitcom *Suddenly Susan* on the same network.

Dr. Drake Ramoray made all the difference.

Brooke Shields said that the single episode of *Friends* she did in 1996 was a turning point for her carer.

"It changed everything for me," the model and actress said on a recent episode of the *Bossticks* podcast. "First of all, I wasn't playing myself. I was with the Julia Roberts' of the world, and people who were huge movie stars, and I was able to hold my own. I wasn't acting opposite them, but we were acting in this same Super Bowl episode."

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Shields played Erika Ford, a woman who was obsessed with Ramoray, the character that Matt LeBlanc's struggling Joey portrayed on *Days of Our Lives** —*in universe, at least. She thinks Joey really is his character.

It was, as Shields noted, "one of the funniest parts written in the whole episode."

Brooke Shields in 2023.

Cindy Ord/Getty

The episode was titled "The One After the Super Bowl" and aired Jan. 28, 1996 — appropriately after the Super Bowl. It featured not only Shields and Roberts but also guests including Jean-Claude Van Damme and Fred Willard. At one point in a dinner scene, Shields' Erika licks Joey's fingers.

"It was comedy gold," Shields said of her part. "And, at first, they didn't let me do it, and they said it makes me too crazy. And I said, 'I have to do it, please.' At the last minute —  we did one pass without it — and then the showrunner said, 'Hey, Shields, put it back in.' And that moment was just a very crazy moment for this character. She was just crazy."

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Shields went all out in the funny part of the delusional Erika, which fans certainly didn't expect from the Calvin Klein model and star of movies such as *Endless Love* and *Pretty Baby*.

"That sort of shock of seeing someone that had been sort of considered a supermodel kind of a thing and pristine and untouchable and, all of a sudden, she's licking a guy's fingers, she's laughing like a crazy person, and they were like, 'Oh my god, what what is this? Like we haven't seen the likes of this,'" Shields recalled. "And it just changed everything. It got me my own television show, and it allowed me to really kind of delve in with comedy chops. And it was a hybrid, because we had a live audience every week. It was like TV and theater all put into one."

Shields went on to star as the titular character in *Suddenly Susan* for four seasons —from 1996 to 2000 — on the same network, NBC. The premise is that Susan leaves her fiancé at the altar and finds herself writing about her single life alongside a cast of characters played by Judd Nelson, Kathy Griffin, and others.

Shields was nominated for two Golden Globe awards for her performance.

*Friends* is available to stream on HBO Max.

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