Friends reunion episode in China censors scenes featuring BTS, Lady Gaga & Justin Bieber

The star-studded Friends reunion episode was less celebrity-packed when it premiered in China on Thursday, May 27. Footage of approximately six minutes was trimmed from the highly-anticipated episode of the NBC sitcom before it was rolled out on three Chinese streamers. Among the many cuts included guest appearances by the K-Pop group BTS, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and cameos by LGBTQIA+ Friends fans.

Friends reunion episode in China didn't feature Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, BTS & more

Just like a lot of countries around the world, China too has a humongous Friends fanbase and its much-talked-about reunion special was acquired by the country's all three streaming giants, i.e. Tencent Video, iQiyi, and Alibaba’s Youku. However, each of the three services made some large alterations to the episode to apparently avoid angering or offending the country's regulators and nationalist social media trolls. Although the cuts made by each streamer differed, all three of them ended up editing out six minutes of content from the original Friends: The Reunion episode, that aired on HBO Max. 

While ardent fans of the show wouldn't want to miss out on the Friends theme song, all the Chinese fans of the sitcom didn't get to witness special guest appearances by BTS, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others. The reason behind the South-Korean group BTS not making it to the Chinese Friends reunion episode was their celebration, last year in October, of the US and South Korea soldiers' sacrifice in the Korean War, whereas China had backed North Korea during the war. Ever since then, the septet has been a target of censorship in China. 

On the other hand, Lady Gaga's highly-loved rendition of the Smelly Cat song with Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) was also trimmed to a couple of seconds to remove the pop icon's feature entirely. For the unversed, the Bad Romance hitmaker has been banned in the socialist country ever since she met with the spiritual leader of Tibet, Dalai Lama, back in 2016. Furthermore, Justin Bieber's stint in the Friends reunion episode was also axed because the Canadian songster has been blacklisted in China since 2014. Back in the day, Justin had unknowingly infuriated the Chinese after he posted about his visit to the Yasukuni War Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, that honours Japanese WWII criminals. Meanwhile, other cuts included moments in the episode that celebrated Friends' LGBT fans and a scene where Joey appears with a picture of Ross pasted to his crotch in a bathrobe. 

IMAGE: A STILL FROM FRIENDS: THE REUNION TRAILER