During the second season of FRIENDS, cast members’ paychecks depended on their popularity. Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer were offered more money than their co-stars. However, Aniston and Schwimmer stuck up for their friends and opposed the unequal pay structure. In an interview, Jennifer Aniston opened up about the salary negotiations that could’ve easily destroyed the ‘FRIENDS’.
A still from NBC’s FRIENDS | Warner Bros. Television
During the rest of their 10-season run, the six cast members, also including Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, and Lisa Kudrow, showed up together for contract talks. In Season 3, both Aniston and Schwimmer took a pay cut to reach the pay parity between cast members.
Jennifer Aniston Opened Up About Fighting For Pay Parity in FRIENDS
Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer in NBC’s FRIENDS | Warner Bros. Television
Jennifer Aniston and the rest of her FRIENDS co-stars were earning a mere $22,500 per episode when the first season of the sitcom rolled out (via Parade). The storyline of Aniston’s Rachel and David Schwimmer‘s Ross took the central stage due to their romance angle in the initial seasons and they became an instant fan-favorite.
When the contracts were negotiated for the second season, Aniston and Schwimmer were offered a much higher salary than the rest of the cast. They were reportedly paid $40,000 while the rest of the cast was paid in the $20,000 range.
The Murder Mystery actress still believes that the decision would’ve destroyed their relationship. During a 2023 profile interview for the Wall Street Journal, she recalled the salary negotiations:
It would’ve destroyed us, I think, if someone was soaring financially.
Aniston believed that all cast members contributed equally to the show’s success and deserved equal pay. She shared in another interview with Radio Times that she wouldn’t feel great if she was getting a higher salary than someone who was doing the same job. She told Radio Times (via Standard UK):
[The negotiatons were] more about, ‘We’re doing equal work and we all deserve to be compensated in the same way.’ I wouldn’t feel good going to work knowing someone was getting x amount and I was getting something greater.
According to an article in The New York Times in 1996, the group of actors threatened “not to show up for the taping of the new season’s shows” unless the issue was sorted. They decided that they were all going to negotiate their contract as a group rather than individually. By Season 3, they were all paid $75,000 per episode, but Schwimmer and Aniston had to take a pay cut to reach this parity.
FRIENDS Cast Managed To Become The Highest Paid Actors In Television
A still from NBC’s FRIENDS | Warner Bros. Television
The Season 4 salary of Jennifer Aniston and the rest of the cast was $85,000 per episode, which was then raised to $100,000 in Season 5 and $125,000 in Season 6 (via Parade). During this time, the show’s ratings soared through the roof, becoming one of the most popular sitcoms ever.
The studio was very happy with the ratings that when the cast returned for a seventh season, they received a whopping $750,000 paycheck per episode. In Seasons 9 and 10, Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow became the highest-paid actresses on television, with each cast member earning $1 million per episode.
Interestingly, Warner Bros. continues to rake in nearly $1 billion each year in FRIENDS revenue. The actors get a two percent cut in this revenue as well. They were also reportedly paid $2.5 million each to appear in the special, FRIENDS: The Reunion.
FRIENDS is now available to stream on Max.
