Matt LeBlanc: I Love My 'F--- You Money' From 'Friends'

USMagazine, Thursday, January 13, 2011, 1:28pm (PST)

How's he doin'?

It's been about five years since Matt LeBlanc's "Friends" spinoff was canceled. So where has he been, anyway?

"I took four or five years off," LeBlanc, 43, tells Details mag, explaining that his off-camera life was less-than-rosy at the time.

"There were a lot of things that were spinning out of control. My daughter had been diagnosed with an illness, my marriage was falling apart, the writing was on the wall that the show was going away--that being the least of those three major problems," says the star, who's finally back on TV playing himself on Showtime's "Episodes."

"I was extremely stressed, and then it was all kind of poof! -- quiet. So I said, 'You know, this is a good time to crawl under a rock,'" says the single star.

LeBlanc admitted he could afford to turn down all the Hollywood offers coming his way. "Thank God I didn't need the money," he said. "You know there's that saying that you make your f--- you money in Hollywood? I made that."

So, exactly how rich is he, then? "My daughter's education is paid for. Her grandchildren's education is paid for. My mother's house is paid off. My father's house is paid off. My house is paid off," he explains. "I come from a blue-collar background, and there's nothing in my upbringing that prepares you for that."

LeBlanc and his "Friends" cohorts Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer famously made $1 million each per episode by the end of the NBC smash's 10-year run.

"It's a little bizarre," LeBlanc concedes. "There are only five other people that have this thing in common with me."

Fans have also been surprised to see LeBlanc sport a full head of gray hair -- but he's been going gray since his "early twenties," he reveals. "I'm not going for the George Clooney thing," he clarifies. "I'm getting old. I'm going for the inevitable."

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