The Friends cast has long made headlines with their salaries, but they didn’t always bring in the big bucks for their scenes at Central Perk. Find out just how much Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer made during their tenure on TV, as well as for their reunion special and their residuals—and how their offscreen friendship helped them shatter records with their salaries.
How much did Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer make for the first season of Friends?
No one in the Friends cast was a household name in the show’s first season. As such, they each reportedly made $22,500 per episode of Season 1, or $540,000 each for all of Season 1.How much did Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer make for Friends Season 2?
Each member of the Friends cast had a different salary for Season 2 of the series. The New York Times reported that some stars made “in the $20,000 range” while others pocketed $40,000, despite the show being a full ensemble cast with no distinct leads among the main six actors. Aniston and Schwimmer were rumored to be making the most money, as Rachel and Ross’ relationship increasingly became a focal point of the show.The Friends cast embraced collective bargaining for Season 3
Though Warner Bros. reportedly preferred individual contracts with each star, the Friends cast banded together for Season 3 negotiations to ensure pay parity (and raises) among them all. The studio agreed to pay the cast members $75,000 per episode (totaling $1.875 million), which was the amount the studio offered to whichever star would have been paid the least for the season. The teamwork of Aniston, LeBlanc, Cox, Perry, Schwimmer and Kudrow set a precedent for casts of later ensemble shows like The Big Bang Theory, whose stars also used collective bargaining in salary negotiations to ensure pay parity for all of its players.How much did Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer make for Friends Season 4?
Season 4 brought the Friends cast another raise: The super six took home $85,000 per episode, totaling $2.125 million.
How much did Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer make for Friends Season 5?
Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer got another raise for Season 5, resulting in an extra digit: a cool $100,000 per episode, totaling $2.4 million each for the season.
What was the Friends cast salary for Season 6?
The Friends cast upped their salaries in Season 6 to $125,000 per episode, netting each member $3.125 million.
How much money did the Friends cast make per episode for Seasons 7 and 8?
Seasons 7 and 8 brought major pay raises to the Friends cast, thanks to their stellar ratings and “Must See TV” status. Each cast member went from making $125,000 per episode in Season 6 to pocketing a staggering $750,000 per episode in Seasons 7 and 8. Each season had 24 episodes, meaning Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer each took home $36 million total.How much did Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer make on the Friends reunion?
According to Variety, the Friends cast each pocketed a cool $2.5 million for their (then-HBO) Max reunion special. The Wall Street Journal reported that Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc, Perry and Schwimmer were initially offered $1 million each for the special, but they rejected the deal at the time. Clearly, their negotiation tactics worked beautifully!Friends stars Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow were the highest-paid women on television during Seasons 9 and 10
In February 2002, the Friends cast famously negotiated $1 million per episode for Seasons 9 and 10, making Kudrow, Cox and Aniston the highest-paid women on TV ever at that time. Adjusted for inflation, it amounts to $1.35 million per episode today. (Aniston has since kept her status thanks to her $2 million per episode salary on The Morning Show.)Season 9 had 24 episodes, while Season 10 had 17 episodes, meaning the cast each took home $41 million for the final jaunt of the series.
When later asked if their $1 million per episode salaries were “worth it,” LeBlanc was understandably miffed.
“Were we worth $1 million? To me, that’s such a strange question,” the Extras star told HuffPost Live in 2015. “It’s like, well, that’s irrelevant. Are you worth it? How do you put a price on how funny something is? We were in a position to get it. If you’re in a position in any job, no matter what the job is—if you’re driving a milk truck or installing TVs or an upholsterer for a couch—if you’re in a position to get a raise and you don’t get it, you’re stupid. You
