The Lavish Gift The Cast Of Will & Grace Received After Their First Season

"Will & Grace" was one of NBC's "must-see TV" shows in the late 1990s through its finale in May 2006. It came back again for another three-season revival in 2017, and it's now permanently wrapped. The show was such a hit after the first season in August 1999 that the NBC executives wanted to give a thank-you gift to the four main cast members of "Will & Grace" — Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally — and it was a pretty impressive thank you! 

They were all presented with Porsche Boxsters, complete with a ribbon on them, in the parking lot at NBC. According to Kelley Blue Book, in 1999, the convertible's price tag was $44,316, which would be about $82,000 in 2023.

The cast talked about getting the gift with Entertainment Weekly, and Messing said it was completely unexpected, "It was really a kind of an out-of-body Oprah moment, where you never, ever imagine in any scenario that someone would say, 'Oh, this is your present.'" Apparently, the cast hadn't even been 100% sure at that point that the show would be picked up for another season, so for them to be getting matching cars as gifts was quite a way — if somewhat roundabout — for them to find out.

While the car was an undeniably impressive gift, not all the cast members held onto that gift for very long. Eric McCormack and Hayes rekindled their friendship after "Will & Grace," and they now co-host the podcast "Just Jack & Will," in which they rewatch episodes of their hit show and provide behind-the-scenes stories and details. On the final episode of Season 1 of their podcast, they talked about getting the cars and what went down afterward.

McCormack explained that they didn't quite know what to do at the moment. "We stood there trying to comprehend that they were giving these to us, and none of us are really car people," he said. Then, McCormack revealed that Hayes asked him quietly, "Is it expensive to insure a Porsche?"

Hayes certainly remembered that moment, and for him, the car wasn't worth keeping at the time. "I sold mine right away," Hayes said, "I could drive a car or live in an apartment." So his NBC gift was definitely appreciated — but in the form of paying for rent rather than as a form of transportation.

It soon became very clear that Sean Hayes had sold his gift from NBC since they all had assigned parking spaces in the NBC lot, and there was very much not a Porsche in Hayes's spot. On their podcast "Just Jack & Will," Hayes said he told people, "I like my Toyota Camry," as a way to explain why he wasn't driving the luxury car he'd been given. He even got a hard time about it from one of the show's writers — Adam Barr pointed out the Camry to Hayes and asked, "Are you not getting your checks?"

We're guessing he likely upgraded cars at some point, considering the cast was paid six figures per episode toward the end of the show's run. But we appreciate his fiscal responsibility — and it confirms that it's a misconception that any acting job comes with financial security.

For his part, McCormack used the car for a while, but he ended up auctioning it off as a benefit for Project Angel Food, a Los Angeles charity. Messing drove hers for 11 years, and it meant a lot to her: "To have this kind of gesture, it kind of gives you the illusion at least that you have some roots in your industry," Messing told Entertainment Weekly. "It really was incredible." Sounds like they each got use of the car in their own way!