“Friends” Star Matt LeBlanc Is Being Praised For His “Refreshing” Approach To Wealth After A Video Of Him Describing His Dream Life Went Viral
What would you do if you had an estimated net worth of $80 million and could earn a reported $20 million every single year without doing a thing? Because the people of the internet believe that actor Matt LeBlanc is living the only correct answer to that question after a TikTok of him describing his post-Friends life went viral.
For context, 57-year-old Matt got his big break when he landed the role of Joey Tribbiani in the hit NBC sitcom back in 1994, which ran for 10 seasons before coming to an end in 2004, when Matt was 37. According to various reports, the six core cast members were paid $22,500 per episode during Season 1, and by the third season, this had jumped to $100,000.
By Season 9, the cast had apparently negotiated a salary of $1 million per episode — the largest-ever deal for a sitcom at the time. For reference, most seasons consisted of 24 episodes, with some as high as 25, and the final season just 18.
As if that wasn’t enough, in 2018, Marketplace reported that the six actors were still earning an estimated $20 million a year through Friends reruns. This is because after Season 6, the cast started to receive 2% of the show’s syndication profits each.
Then, in 2020, Variety reported the cast were paid $2.5 million each to take part in the 104-minute reunion documentary, which aired in 2021.
Initially, Matt also followed this path, famously starring in a spin-off about his Friends character, Joey, between 2004 and 2006. He didn’t appear onscreen again until 2011 when he landed a role in Episodes, and his last screen appearance was in June 2020 when his show, Man With A Plan, was canceled.
But before you feel too sorry for Matt’s lack of TV work in recent years, you should probably know that it seems to be very intentional. Recently, somebody put together a compilation of some of Matt’s TV interviews, which highlights how he has only had one main priority in life post-Friends, and that is to do nothing.
Speaking during a 2017 appearance on Conan, Matt told the host that he’d like to retire as soon as possible, saying: “I think I would like to do not a fucking thing, that’s what I would like to do. Just nothing, absolutely nothing, zero.”
And Matt doubled down on this mindset during a 2018 appearance on the Scandinavian TV show Skavlan, where he said of his career: “My plan was, I did 10 years of Friends, then two years of Joey, and then I said: ‘Right, I’m gonna take a year off, I wanna take a year off and just relax.’”
The TikTok combining these interviews has been viewed more than 1.2 million times so far, and has racked up 10s of thousands of likes and comments — with many admitting to respecting Matt’s “refreshing” approach to being wealthy.
You can watch the TikTok below — let me know your thoughts in the comments!
NRK / TBS / Via tiktok.com
