More than two decades after the Friends finale saw the group walk out of Monica’s apartment for the last time, the show is still proving hugely lucrative for its stars.
When Friends debuted in 1994, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer were reportedly earning around $22,500 per episode.
As the sitcom’s audience exploded, those figures climbed dramatically. By 2002, reports suggested the six leads were each taking home an eye-watering $1 million per episode.
Even now, it’s been claimed the cast continue to receive about $20 million a year in residual payments, something that Lisa Kudrow appeared to back up in a recent interview.
Asked by The Times earlier this month why the money is still so substantial, the 62-year-old laughed: “Because Phoebe Buffay was so great?”
Her iconic character is certainly part of the enduring appeal, but the bigger answer comes down to how television royalties work.
So why are actors paid long after production wraps? The key is residuals — ongoing payments that are triggered when a show or film is reused, such as through TV reruns, streaming deals, or DVD sales.
Residual amounts are determined by union agreements and formulas set by bodies such as SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, which lay out how revenue is shared when content continues to be distributed.
Explaining the principle to the LA Times, entertainment lawyer Joshua Edwards (a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP) said: “If a title is something that has a long lifetime and is continually licensed over and over again to different platforms, then that actor or writer should continue to benefit.”
USA Today has previously reported that Friends brings in roughly $1 billion a year for Warner Bros., with the six main cast members said to have secured a deal worth 2%.
The show originally aired on NBC and has since cycled through major streaming services. In 2018, it was reported that Netflix paid $100 million to keep the series on the platform for a year — the kind of arrangement where creators and talent can negotiate profit participation depending on their contracts.
And while Friends continues to provide a significant income stream, the cast have also stayed busy with film and television projects of their own, further adding to their earnings.
All told, it’s a pretty impressive post-show paycheck.