Lisa Kudrow says people looked at her like she was a ‘monster’ for banning hugging at her mother’s funeral

Actor said it was ‘hard’ convincing people to practice social distancing at ceremony

Lisa Kudrow has spoken about the difficulty of introducing social distancing rules at her mother’s funeral.

The Friends star, whose mother died in February, said she requested that there be “no hugging” at the ceremony.

“I was the one who asked the rabbi to please let everyone know there was to be no hugging because we were all in an emergency room with her,” Kudrow told The Hollywood Reporter.

“That was the hardest decision because we weren't there yet and we had only just heard the words ‘social distancing’. I'm a freak and all I could think that whole day was there has to be coronavirus here.”

She continued: “Some people [understood] and most people were just looking at me like I was a monster when I'd take two steps back, put up my hands and say, ‘Hi, thanks for coming.’ That was hard.

“That's the stuff that breaks my heart, too, when I see parents, especially in the health care field, who come home from work and are like, ‘Hi, remember, we have to stay away from mommy.’ How is a three-year-old supposed to understand that?”

Kudrow, who is starring in Netflix’s new satirical series Space Force, recently defended Friends amid criticism that the show has aged badly.

She told The Sunday Times: “This show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together? We had surrogacy too. It was, at the time, progressive.”