Friends star reveals why she left Hollywood for unusual new career

Jane Sibbett played Ross’s first wife Carol Willick on the hit sitcom

Friends star Jane Sibbett has revealed why she chose to leave her Hollywood career behind to become an energy healer.

The 62-year-old actor is best known for playing Carol Willick, the first wife of central character Ross, on the long-running sitcom.

Sibbett’s character made history when she was part of the first lesbian wedding on network television. She was also known for playing Clarice Kensington in the 1995 romantic comedy It Takes Two.

However, by 2015 she had transitioned away from acting to a new role as an energy healer.

Speaking to People, Sibbett explained that she is writing a book about her life and the discovery of her “gift” for healing.

'Friends' star Jane Sibbett in Beverly Hills in 2007 (Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

“I’m working on the memoir of this whole situation, and one of my mentors had said, ‘Go back before the gift,’” she said.

“The gift has been here 10 years now. When I work with the dancing hands, it's not me. It's source energy coming through me, and so I just feel nothing but bliss and joy and love when I am in this state."

Sibbett first became interested in the practice while living in Topanga, California before she relocated to Hawaii with her then-husband Karl Fink.

“My husband and I split [when] we were in Hawaii, and I was on my knees because I was really brokenhearted by everything, and part of that was my stuff that I had to deal with,” she said.

She and her husband had been working on a documentary about the healer Abdy Electriciteh, and he helped Sibbett realize it was something she wanted to pursue.

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“He tapped me on my third eye and I went down, I passed out into the state of bliss for about an hour,” the former actor recalled.

“There was no thought, there was no fear, there was just — you can't even say it, but on the other side of it, days later, it was bliss. Some people came up to me afterward and [said], ‘We see this light coming off of your hands,’ because while I was under [the healing trance], my hands started to dance.”

Sibbett has previously said she was in the running for the part of Rachel Green on Friends, before Jennifer Aniston landed the role.

“I actually was up for another character,” she said in 2020. “They wanted me to be one of the main six.”

Sibbett added: “It was actually Rachel but I usually don’t tell people that because Jen… There’s no one who could’ve done it like Jen.”