The only thing worse than having someone serve you divorce papers is then having to watch that same person on one of the most popular sitcoms of the late 1990s and early 2000s for ten seasons in a row, as rock singer Rod Stewart may or may not have come to find around this time. (The jury’s still out on whether Stewart was watching much TV amidst his busy schedule.)
Nevertheless, the opportunity certainly arose in 1994, when the teenager who served the “Maggie May” singer his divorce papers landed their big break on the NBC sitcom Friends. How’s that for an I’ll be there for you moment?
Videos by American Songwriter
This Future Sitcom Star Served Rod Stewart His Divorce Papers
Not even celebrities are immune to a process server tracking them down to deliver court summonses, divorce papers, subpoenas, and other pertinent legal documents. Law offices like the one David Schwimmer’s mother, Arlene Coleman-Schwimmer, worked at dispatched countless process servers to clients of all kinds. Because she worked in California, some clientele was notably high profile. One of those clients included actor Elizabeth Taylor, who gifted Coleman-Schwimmer with a necklace from her personal collection for doing such a good job. In 1988, the Los Angeles Times described her as a “street fighter with the tenacity of a pit bull.”
She was also a giving mother, which meant that when her teenage son asked for a job to earn a little extra cash, she offered him a gig as a process server for her law firm. (Of course, this is before her son, David, would go on to play Ross Geller on the hit NBC sitcom Friends.) During a January 2025 visit to the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Schwimmer recalled his brief stint as a server the summer after his freshman year of college. “I was the guy who would pop out of the bushes and serve you divorce papers. At the time, I was 18. I’m like, I was James Bond. I’m not James Bond. You get a tip. You’re tipped off as to where they might be.”
During one particularly memorable shift at his mother’s law office, Schwimmer served papers to none other than rock vocalist Rod Stewart. “Thank goodness I’ve never run into him since,” Schwimmer said. “I don’t even know if he knows. I don’t think he knows.” Colbert retorted, “He knows now.”
A Memorable Interaction With A Current (And Future) Star
David Schwimmer’s recollection of working as a process server for his mother’s law firm matches the public timeline of Rod Stewart’s divorce from his first wife, Alana Stewart. The Friends actor was born in November 1966. That means he would have just graduated high school around the time of the rock singer’s first divorce in 1984. (Though Schwimmer didn’t name any specific names.) In any case, Schwimmer would have been well aware of just how big of a celebrity the person he was serving that summer was.
By 1984, Stewart had solidified his palace as one of the most iconic rock and new wave vocalists of all time with hits like “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.” Given just how pervasive Friends was in the decade that followed, it would stand to reason that Stewart might have caught a glimpse of Schwimmer at some point, perhaps even recognizing him as the fresh-faced teenager who handed him his divorce papers.
Photo By Rick Diamond/Getty Images