(Editor's note: This column was originally published on July 2, 2016.) Leah Remini made headlines in 2013 with her very vocal decision to leave the Church of Scientology. The move sparked a media frenzy and was featured heavily in the storylines of her 2014 TLC reality series Leah Remini: It’s All Relative. The show was cancelled after two seasons but has reportedly given rise to a potentially explosive new series about the Church’s effects on families that Remini is producing. But before her war of words began with Scientology, Remini was getting friendly with Matt LeBlanc's sweet dimwit Joey Tribbiani on the classic comedy Friends.
For Remini, walking onto the set for her 1995 guest appearance in the episode titled “The One with the Birth” was bittersweet -- because she actually had come very close to becoming an actual “Friend.” “I had auditioned for the role of Monica,” she told me. “As an actress you go on each audition thinking ‘this could change my life. I could get my car out of repo, or get a nice apartment that's not backed up to a bar in Hollywood,’ so everything rides on those moments.”
In fact, Remini didn’t just read for the role that would eventually go to Courteney Cox, she made it all the way through to network-head approval. “I was devastated that I didn't get it,” she admitted. “We all knew it would be a huge hit. We just knew it.”