‘Friends’ Guest Star Steve Park Details Alleged Racist Incident

Steve Park says his time guest starring on Friends was memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. The actor, 62, said his gig in 1997 on the comedy was “kind of a toxic environment.” He starred on two episodes — Season 2, Episode 23 in 1996, titled “The One with the Chicken Pox,” and in 1997 during Season 3, Episode 24, “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion.” While on set, he recalls hearing co-workers make racist statements toward actor James Hong.

The unnamed crew member allegedly called Hong, now 96, to set “and essentially saying, ‘Where is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.’” Shocked and upset, Park filed a complaint with the Screen Actors Guild and wrote a “mission statement calling for better treatment of Asian Americans in Hollywood.

“When I called Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke with recommended I write an article to the LA Times,” Park told hosts and Boy Meets World alums Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong on their podcast.

“This is bigger than this show,” he explained. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. But this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this was normal behavior.”

As a result of the incident, Park says the LA Times sent reporters to interview him about his mission statement, “and then they never printed it.”

He provided an email response, which he says ignited “responses from all across the country from publications that were asking permission to reprint it. It went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word.”

The open letter was published in multiple outlets, detailing not only the Friends incident but also the treatment of Asian Americans and people of color working in the entertainment industry during that time.

“If this was an isolated incident, I would not have felt compelled to write this mission statement. Unfortunately, I find this attitude and behavior commonplace in Hollywood,” Park wrote at the time. “I know many people who have experienced this kind of indignity on a movie or television show set, and you can be sure this kind of thing is going on in the corporate culture as well.” He also noted, “Hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise in this country, and negative portrayals of Asians in the media only encourage this trend.”

The letter caused Park to retire from acting for some time. “I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he said. “I felt like there is no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore.’”