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Courteney Cox recounts 'Friends' contract negotiations: 'We all stood by each other'

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 3/31/21

Friends aired its final episode May 6, 2004, but fascination for the iconic television series has not waned in the 17 years since. While there will forever be a debate over whether Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) were on a break, there never was a question among the cast when it came to contract negotiations.

Courteney Cox, forever immortalized as Monica Geller, had a 2017 interview with host Sam Jones for his Off Camera series resurface this week. In the interview, she commented on how her co-stars made sure to get their coin at the height of their fame as well as the beginning of actors taking their power back in Hollywood.

Jones teed Cox up by commending "the idea that all six of you would go in there and want to have the same contract" before mentioning criticism from acclaimed television producer Richard Wolf. "His response was, 'That was upsetting to me,'" Jones relayed. "'I would have fired Matt LeBlanc, and there would have never been any discussion of everyone having solidarity again.'"

When Friends debuted in 1994, there were differences between each cast member's contract.

"I was lucky I had the Richard Cunningham, Fonzie contract where no one could make more than me," Cox said. "So, I didn't need to fight the battle because I had that, but it was so important that we got paid the same amount of money. We were all working. The show used to be called Six of One—that's where it started—we were six of one. I mean, we were a team."

The 56-year-old continued: "I feel like there was a thing where they could pick us up and only take four of us. It could have been an ugly situation, which we all stood by each other. It was everything. Any other way, it would have been too many hard feelings, too uncomfortable. It would just have been horrible."

Business Insider laid out everything that had to happen in 2002 in order for Cox, Aniston, Schwimmer, LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow to land $1 million for each episode in Season 9 and 10. According to that article, this is what cast had previously earned per episode: $22,500 (Season 1), $22,500 to $40,000 (Season 2), $75,000 (Season 3), $85,000 (Season 4), $100,000 (Season 5), $125,000 (Season 6), $750,000 (Season 7, 8).

The six core cast members had decided to negotiate as a group around Season 3.

More Friends tea could be spilled at the highly anticipated HBO Max reunion special, which is expected to start filming soon.