'Friends' Reunion: It's Not Happening, People

Despite those stories that spread online on Tuesday, and no matter what your friend told you, or your dentist heard, or you saw on Twitter, the fact is this: The "Friends" gang will not be there for you. Rumors of a "Friends" reunion movie or Thanksgiving special could not be more false.

Or, if you prefer the news in a gentler form, you and "Friends" are on a break. (A permanent one.)

Yes, sorry, "Friends" fans, but you're going to have to continue to let your imagination do all the work in determining what Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey, and Phoebe (and Gunther … don't forget Gunther!) are up to these days, because everyone from NBC to Warner Bros. to "Friends" co-creator Marta Kauffman has said, officially, a "Friends" reunion is not in the works.

"I'm going to clear this up -- it's not happening!" Kauffman told E! Online. "'Friends' was about that time in your life when your friends are your family, and once you have a family, there's no need anymore."

That puts a serious dent in our assumption that Joey's been living in the basement of Monica and Chandler's house in the burbs all these years, but we get it, Marta … no reunion special, no movie, no new season of "Friends" is coming our way any time soon, and maybe never.

Or, at least, not until all six cast members have permanently exhausted every other Hollywood possibility.

Seriously though, the "Friends" gang has been quite insistent since the Emmy-winning series' May 2004 finale that they have no desire to revisit their Central Perk haunt for a reunion.

Both Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry told interviewers last year that while they enjoyed working on the show, "Friends" is best left in the past.

"I can't imagine how you would do it, unless you did it years from now," Aniston told The Hollywood Reporter of a potential "Friends" big-screen movie. "I can't imagine what that would be. It's not normal. 'Friends' is in your living room; 'Friends' is not in a movie theater. It doesn't make sense to me. I think it would be going against its authentic self."

And Perry tweeted last November, responding to another rumored reunion:

One ray of "Friends"-related hope, though, might be found in a tweet from TV critic Alan Sepinwall, who cheekily suggested a fake "Friends" reunion:

Laugh, chortle, guffaw if you will, but we could see The CW turning that idea into a series.

Check out recent photos of the cast of "Friends":