Lisa Kudrow reveals why 'Friends' still make millions decades later

Turns out Friends is not just emotionally valuable – it’s financially undefeated too.

More than two decades after the sitcom ended, Lisa Kudrow and her former cast mates are reportedly still pulling in around $20 million a year in residuals whenever the show re-airs. And Lisa? She has one very Phoebe Buffay explanation for it.

“Because Phoebe Buffay was so great?”

Honestly, fair point.

But beneath the joke, Kudrow got unexpectedly emotional while reflecting on the show’s legacy – especially after revisiting it following the 2023 death of Matthew Perry.

“After Matthew died I watched the show again,” she shared. “Before, I only saw what I did wrong or could have done better. But for the first time I truly appreciated just how great it was.”

And yes, she gave credit where credit is due.

“I felt I did OK, but Jennifer and Courteney? Amazing,” she said of Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox. “David and Matt? They had me laughing so hard. And then Matthew—he was just beyond us all.”

Kudrow believes the magic of Friends came from something bigger than punchlines.

“Friends captured a kind of innocence that maybe a younger generation has never got to experience.”

And apparently, nobody made that innocence funnier than Perry.

“There was a genius at work,” she said of his Chandler Bing performance. “Whatever any of us do in the future, we will never experience something like that again.”

Then came the line every Friends fan probably agrees with:

“He was so funny, I mean, the funniest. Sorry, everybody else, but just truly.”