Now that we’ve had some time to wipe the tears from our eyes, we can finally have a good think about the Friends reunion special. The highly emotional episode saw the six friends reunited and reminiscing over the show that launched their careers.
If you cast your mind back to May 6, 2004, you might remember how much the cast were paid for the final episode. A cool US$1 million landed in each of their pockets, making them the highest paid television actors in history at the time. Unsurprisingly, this moment went down in history as they negotiated the whopping salaries themselves. It’s a lesson to us all to always remember our worth.
Well, 17 years may have passed but the Friends cast definitely still know their worth. It’s been reported by the Wall Street Journal that they were initially offered US$1 million each again, but turned it down. Apparently, this is another reason that the reunion took so long to come about, along with the global pandemic (obviously).
After all the salary hubbub, Variety reported that the cast were being paid at least US$2.5 million each to film the reunion. Not bad for a day spent hanging out with old friends and reminiscing, don’t you think?
According to USA Today, the stars also get around US$20 million a year in syndication payments as well, so it certainly has been their day, month and year.
You can sign up to Binge and watch the Friends reunion special here.
