What happened to Joey Tribbiani after Friends ended? Matt LeBlanc played the character throughout all 236 episodes of the sitcom over the course of a decade. But that wouldn't be the last time the actor would portray the character on a TV series.
Joey was the lovable goofball within the group. He was good-natured but not always considered the brightest in the bunch. Joey came from a big Italian family and grew up in Queens. He was known for his strong New York accent which he used to hilariously attract women. Joey, of course, was the most promiscuous character on the show. He was also an aspiring actor throughout the series and often fit into the stereotype as he was constantly looking for work.
In the final season of Friends, Joey and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) briefly dated but they soon realized that they had a better relationship before it turned romantic. By the end of the series, Joey was the only one out of the group that was single. After Monica (Courtney Cox) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) moved out of the apartments, Joey shortly followed. He decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a legitimate career in acting. Joey's move across the country was the focus of the Friends' spinoff series, appropriately titled Joey.
LeBlanc reprised his role as Joey for the spinoff that lasted for two seasons. Joey premiered the fall of 2004, just a few months after Friends ended. The series focused on the titular character after he moved to Hollywood and reunited with his sister Gina (Drea de Matteo). He eventually lived with his genius nephew while trying to acquire consistent work as an actor. Joey was offered a role on a sitcom but turned it down for another role. That other role happened to be on a show that was quickly canceled while the original show went on to become a major hit. Joey then bounced back and found a job on a prime time soap Deep Powder. His life was going great until his character on Deep Powder was killed off and then he was subsequently fired.
Joey overcame yet another challenge and scored a gig on a big-budget action movie, his biggest project to date. The spinoff series was then canceled so Joey's story came to a crashing halt. It was revealed, however, that he was in a committed relationship with his next-door-neighbor Alex (Andrea Anders). This was the most serious relationship Joey ever had with a woman and the first time he's ever thought about marriage.
As a way to entice viewers, NBC initially gave Joey the Thursday night time slot that Friends previously held. Ratings started off strong but they gradually decreased before the series went on hiatus in the middle of the second season. Joey ultimately hit an all-time low in viewership, so NBC decided to cancel the series. It was pulled from the network in May 2006 and the remaining episodes weren't broadcast. Most viewers chose to forget the events of the spinoff but it was to learn that the beloved Friends character achieved some of the goals that dreamed about for so long.