Of life's many questions born of acute existential anguish, few have caused global obsession quite like the mystery of "Ugly Naked Guy" from the Schwimmerssance-initiating classic Friends. The staunch nudist, who lived across the street from Monica and Rachel's apartment on the classic NBC series, appeared in a few episodes (including "The One Where Everybody Finds Out" alongside an equally nude David Schwimmer) but managed to keep his real-life identity under wraps—well, at least until now.
Todd Van Luling, a writer for the Huffington Post, has concluded his admirable year-long quest to uncover the identity of Mr. Ugly Naked Guy. Though the series never formally credited the mystery actor responsible for bringing Ugly Naked Guy to life, an otherwise spot-on Friends Wikia page attributed the character to Michael Hagerty. Hagerty, of course, also played Mr. Treeger on the series:
However, after approaching Hagerty about this alleged nakedness, Luling hit a bit of a roadblock. "I never played the Ugly Naked Guy," the actor confirmed. "And that said, I'd rather be known as Mr. Treeger than the Ugly Naked Guy anyways." With this bummer of a development firmly in the rearview, Luling trudged forward.
This extremely dedicated dude then hit up Friends casting director Leslie Litt, the Central Casting talent agency, and others closely associated with the series. The response? A whole lot of nothing. But just as the mystery of Ugly Naked Guy was starting to seem like a bigger mystery than any one mind could crack, dude got a surprising breakthrough.
A full year after initially hitting a roadblock with Litt, Luling finally got a slice of good news. This is our guy:
"There's only one Ugly Naked Guy, man, and that was me," Jon Haugen, fully clothed and awesome, confirmed to Luling. According to Haugen, producers wanted "everybody to have a guess" as to the identity of Ugly Naked Guy, so he never came forward. "It was the best time in my life," Haugen told the Post. "I was the man." And you still are.
