Who's The Richest Of Them All: How Friends Cast Went From Getting $22K To $1M Per Episode
Thankfully, everyone involved got quite a raise throughout the years.
To this day, Friends remains a television classic: millions of people turn to it when they are feeling down, finding comfort in its timeless jokes.
Many believe that the cast and the dynamic between them is what made the show so good and why it still holds up so well after so many years.
But not everyone knows how humble the beginnings of Friends were and how big their budgets became over the years.
When Friends began production and all of the cast members signed their contracts, they were paid a set amount per episode.
Each of the six actors portraying the show's main characters would receive $22.5K per episode. Little did they know that this number would soon change.
After the success of the first season, starring Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer, there was supposed to be an increase in their pay.
However, they decided to play nice and took the loss out of their pockets to split the money equally among all of their co-stars.
In the second season, each member of the Friends cast received $40,000 per episode. This was a wise thing to do because the show was becoming more successful and they could afford to continue to negotiate for more.
As the show became more popular, the actors' salaries increased. For the last two seasons of the show, each member of the cast received an equal amount of $1 million for filming an episode.
While the money was well-deserved, in retrospect that number seems ridiculously large, even for Friend co-creator Marta Kauffman.
Considering how many roles she had played over the years in top Hollywood comedies, it's no surprise that today Jennifer Aniston leads up the cast with a net worth of approximately $320M.
Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, and Matthew Perry all have a net worth of around $120M-$150M, and Matt Leblanc stands last with $85M secured.
It's hard to put a price tag on all the warm memories, positive emotions and good laughs the cast helped share with viewers.
But seeing how their careers took off after the show, it's safe to say that negotiating for more was the most practical decision they could have made in the beginning.
If you want to revisit your favorite Friends moments, you can stream Friends on Netflix or MAX.
Source: Insider, Celebrity Net Worth