'Living Single' Fans Are Still Fuming Over 'Friends' Seemingly Ripping off Classic Queen Latifah Sitcom

Over 20 years after the sitcom Living Single said goodbye to the airwaves, and fans are still upset that the show was presumably ripped off by a more popular sitcom, Friends. Fans continue to air their grievances over the well-documented point of contention on Twitter after an old viral meme started making the rounds again Monday.

The argument is something the casts of both shows are aware of. In fact, in an interview with the Guardian last year, Friends star David Schwimmer responded to comments that the show lacked diverse representation. "That show was groundbreaking in its time for the way in which it handled so casually sex, protected sex, gay marriage and relationships… You have to look at it from the point of view of what the show was trying to do at the time. I'm the first person to say that maybe something was inappropriate or insensitive, but I feel like my barometer was pretty good at that time. I was already really attuned to social issues and issues of equality." He continued, adding that he advocated for more Black women as love interests on the series –– even adding that he thought "maybe there should be an all-Black friends or an all-Asian friends."

Erika Alexander, who played Maxine Shaw on Living Single, responded to his comments saying on Twitter, "Hey @DavidSchwimmer @FriendsTV, r u seriously telling me you've never heard of #LivingSingle?" Alexander tweeted. "We invented the template. Yr welcome, bro. ;)" Schwimmer responded to the tweet in a note. "I didn't mean to imply Living Single hadn't existed or indeed hadn't come before Friends, which I knew it had. Please remember in an interview quotes are often pieced together and taken out of context, and then these quotes are repurposed in other articles by other people who are trying to be provocative."