Why Jennifer Aniston Almost Left 'Friends' Halfway Through the First Season

It is hard to fathom, but there was once a brief moment in time when Rachel Green star Jennifer Aniston considered leaving Friends.

Refinery29 reports that, halfway through the first season way back in 1994, Aniston was already committed to another project, a CBS sitcom called Muddling Through. She filmed six episodes of the other series while also filming Friends, all the while having the understanding that if Muddling Through was picked up, she would have to leave NBC.

But the studio wasn’t going to lose Ross' lobster so easily. When CBS aired their show in that summer, NBC countered by releasing TV films adapted from Danielle Steele novels at the same time. The films crushed any potential competition, and Aniston stayed put.

And she is lucky she did. The now 25-year-old sitcom catapulted Aniston's career, and is still adored by viewers to this day. Due to her success that no doubt began on Friends, when she recently returned to the small screen for the AppleTV+ series, The Morning Show, she was able to sign a deal to be paid over a reported $1,000,000 per episode, along with her co-star Reese Witherspoon, who once played Rachel’s sister Jill.

Thank goodness for the cutthroat NBC executives who helped us keep the one and only Rachel.