Jennifer Aniston Says Her First Big Splurge From Her ‘Friends’ Paycheck Was a $13,000 Mistake

Jennifer Aniston’s first big purchase with her Friends paycheck turned out to be a major lesson for the star. The Murder Mystery 2 actress, 54, opened up about her ill-fated splurge in a new interview with Popsugar, revealing that she spent $13,000 for a cream-colored vintage Mercedes-Benz 280SL that she had admired for years while driving past its sale sign through Melrose in Los Angeles. 

“My first big splurge was on a Mercedes that had a for sale sign on it for almost two years,” she recalled. “I was always like ‘I can’t wait. Someday.’” After shelling out the asking price for the vehicle, Aniston barely got off the lot before she started experiencing some major mechanical issues. “I bought it. And then I drove it. And then I drove it again and it never drove again,” the We’re the Millers star continued. “It was a lemon.”

With some life experience under her belt, Aniston says her biggest lesson was to do her research when shopping for cars. “I didn’t know any better to get it checked out,” she shrugged. “That was just a nice 25-year-old mistake.” The first season of Friends aired in 1995, and a lot has changed since its premiere – from Aniston’s star status to the kind of comedy that’s broadly accepted.

Aniston recently looked back on how much “comedy has evolved” over the past two-plus decades in an interview with AFP. “Now it’s a little tricky because you have to be very careful, which makes it really hard for comedians, because the beauty of comedy is that we make fun of ourselves, make fun of life,” Aniston said. “[In the past] you could joke about a bigot and have a laugh – that was hysterical. And it was about educating people on how ridiculous people were. And now we’re not allowed to do that.”

“There’s a whole generation of people, kids, who are now going back to episodes of Friends and find them offensive,” the actress added. “There were things that were never intentional and others… well, we should have thought it through – but I don’t think there was a sensitivity like there is now.” She concluded, “Everybody needs funny! The world needs humor! We can’t take ourselves too seriously. Especially in the United States. Everyone is far too divided.”