Jennifer Aniston's ex boyfriend has opened up about filming Friends together as they were breaking up

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Friends left our screens in 2004 and we’re still not over it.

Yes it may have been 18 years since Chandler, Rachel, Ross, Monica, Phoebe and Joey made their last appearances but it feels like it was just yesterday, and we still talk about it as such.

This past week, it was Jennifer Aniston and her ex boyfriend/ former co-star Tate Donovan that made headlines, as a sweet anecdote resurfaced involving Donovan buying his then girlfriend a 9-week-old puppy for Valentine’s Day back in 1996, and leaving him in Jen’s dressing room as a surprise.

Donovan famously had a guest appearance in Friends, playing Rachel’s love interest, Joshua Burgin – or “Josh-ua” to serious Friends fans.

But while many thought that the couple met on the set of the iconic sitcom, it turns out they had actually been dating years previously – even getting engaged in 1998, and according to Donovan the couple were actually breaking up during his guest appearance on the show.

Jennifer Aniston and Tate Donovan. Getty Images.

“The people that know that we dated think that we met on Friends,” Donovan explained to Us Weekly. “But in fact we had dated for two years before then, and it was over by the time we were on Friends together.”

While he admits to being sceptical of taking on the cameo, he explained that he thought it would “be good to work through this breakup”, but he has since spoken out about his experience and how it was much sadder than he foresaw.

“I was just happy to be on the team,” he explained of his Friends appearance. “The only bummer was Jennifer and I were breaking up at the time. And so that was tricky to sort of act, and act like we are just meeting each other, and falling in love, or whatever, interested in each other, when we’re sort of breaking up. That was just tough.”

He continued: “It was just six episodes. I mean, only because we were breaking up. We were like, ‘Hey, can we not keep doing this? ‘Cause this is really painful and tough.'”

In an interview with HuffPost Live, he continued: “It was horrible. It was so tough. I remember getting back to my dressing room and just weeping.”

We don’t know how they did it.

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