Last month, around the time of the Friends reunion special, Courteney Cox posted an amazing video on Instagram in which she, Elton John, Ed Sheeran and singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile all sang Elton’s hit “Tiny Dancer,” but changed to lyrics to “Hold me close/young Tony Danza” — in reference to what Lisa Kudrow‘s Friends character Phoebe thought Elton was singing. Now, Cox has revealed how she got the all-star group together.
As many fans know, Ed and Cox are longtime pals, and Ed even introduced the actress to her boyfriend, Johnny McDaid. Cox tells Entertainment Weekly that both Ed and Brandi were staying over her house for Brandi’s birthday when Ed asked her, “Do you mind if I have Elton John over for dinner?'”
Once Elton confirmed he was coming, Cox says, it was Ed’s idea to film the number. “He said, ‘Maybe it’d be really funny if we do a thing, the Lisa Kudrow ‘hold me closer,'” Cox recalls.
So Cox, who plays piano, asked a friend to teach her how to play “Tiny Dancer” 20 minutes before Elton was set to arrive. She says, “After dinner, Elton was like, ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ and then I was playing with Ed, Brandi, and Elton. And Elton had his arm around me, and I was like, ‘I love this moment, but I’m panicking.'”
She got through it, but once they sang the chorus, Cox says Elton asked her, “What are you doing? Why are you stopping?”
“And I’m like, ‘Dude, I only know that part of the song!'” she laughs. “It was amazing.”
What’s more, Cox says after filming the clip, Elton entertained them by playing two deep cuts from his 1970 self-titled album: “The Greatest Discovery” and “I Need You to Turn To.”
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