Before Ross and Rachel became pop-culture shorthand for romantic indecision, before Central Perk turned into a global tourist reference point, a different group of six friends was already redefining sitcom life in New York City. In 1993, Living Single, created by trailblazer Yvette Lee Bowser, debuted on FOX and quickly became the highest-rated show in Black households. One year later, NBC premiered Friends—a series that would go on to dominate global television history. The similarities were not accidental, and the story behind them has become one of the most controversial chapters in sitcom lore.
Originally titled My Girls, Living Single centered on the sisterhood and friendships of Khadijah James, Synclaire James, Regine Hunter, and Maxine Shaw—played by Queen Latifah, Kim Coles, Kim Fields, and Erika Alexander. In a 2025 discussion on the ReLiving Single podcast, Queen Latifah revealed that the pilot even had a completely different theme song—more soulful and mellow—before the show was reworked into the hip-hop-forward classic audiences know today. From its very conception, Living Single was intentional, culturally grounded, and ahead of its time.
The controversy begins with NBC. In the early 1990s, Warren Littlefield, then president of NBC Entertainment, was asked which show on a rival network he most wished he had. His answer was immediate: Living Single. Shortly afterward, NBC commissioned a new sitcom from Marta Kauffman and David Crane. That project became Friends.
The parallels were striking. Both shows followed six friends—three men and three women—navigating adulthood in New York City. Both featured closely related leads (Khadijah and Synclaire as cousins; Monica and Ross as siblings). Both relied on the “neighbor drop-in” dynamic that made the apartments feel like communal living spaces. Even the thematic tagline of Friends—“your friends are your family”—had already been lived, weekly, in a Brooklyn brownstone.
Yet while both shows were produced by Warner Bros. Television, their trajectories could not have been more different. Living Single dominated Black viewership for five consecutive years but never received the marketing muscle or international syndication push that turned Friends into a billion-dollar franchise. Cast members such as Erika Alexander have openly discussed the erasure, while T. C. Carson was famously written off the show after advocating for parity.
Today, as Living Single finds new audiences through streaming, its legacy is finally being reclaimed. While Friends may have built the global empire, Living Single was the architect—proof that the world’s most familiar sitcom formula was pioneered by a Black woman telling stories that networks once believed were “too specific” to lead the culture.