Friends actor Matthew Perry’s memoir Friends, Lovers & the Big Terrible Thing is turning out to be a bag of saucy revelations. Right from his dating life to his battles with addiction, Chandler clearly pours his heart out in his new memoir. Recent reports suggest that the actor has gone on record with eyebrow-raising revelations about Friends cast salary.
Perry played the role of Chandler for a decade and earned $22,500 dollars for the first episode, which aired in 1994. And by the end of the show, his salary shot up to $1 million dollars! But, he was only able to demand this figure solely because David Schwimmer, who played the role of Ross Geller, didn’t ask for a raise.
“It was a decision that proved to be extremely lucrative down the line. David had certainly been in a position to go for the most money, and he didn’t. I would like to think that I would have made the same move, but as a greedy twenty-five-year-old, I’m not sure I would have. But his decision served to make us take care of each other through what turned out to be a myriad of stressful network negotiations, and it gave us a tremendous amount of power,” writes Perry.
Dropping deeper insights into the paycheques of the other stars in the American sitcom, he said, “By season eight, we were making a million dollars per episode; by season ten we were making even more. We were making $1,100,040 an episode, and we were asking to do fewer episodes. Morons, all of us. We had David’s goodness, and his astute business sense, to thank for what we had been offered. I owe you about $30 million, David. (We were still morons).”
Next, Perry shed light on the money made by Matt LeBlanc, who played the role of Joey Tribbiani. Believe it or not, but it seems the spin-off series had Joey make hay while the sun shone: he was reportedly getting $600,000 dollars per episode!
Perry didn’t stop at just that. He also opened up about harboring a crush on his co-actor Jennifer Aniston, who allegedly wasn’t too keen on being more than friends with her co-star. While Perry wasn’t happy with the offer, he eventually decided to stay good friends with Aniston for the sake of good vibes at work.
Lead Image: Friends/Instagram
