Baywatch was one of the biggest TV shows in the world when it was on screens from the late 80s up until the beginning of the 00s, but the stars have been discussing how they weren’t paid all that much.
The show had 11 seasons following a bunch of LA lifeguards and drew millions of viewers, but the actors have said they didn’t get paid what you might expect for such a high-profile show.
After Baywatch: Moment in the Sun is a new Hulu documentary about the series and some of the stars have been saying they were ‘freaking out’ when they saw what they were getting paid.
Nicole Eggert, who played Roberta Quinn on Baywatch, told the documentary how different things were compared to other shows like Friends.
She said: “Back then, what they were offering everybody was about $3,500 a show. Friends at that point, I think they were each making $1 million an episode.”
Some of the Baywatch cast revealed they weren’t being paid what you’d think. (Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
“There’s not one rich actor on Baywatch. Not one. That’s strange because the wealth is always shared when you’re on a hit TV show,” said Billy Warlock, who played Eddie Kramer in the series.
Fellow Baywatch star Erika Eleniak said she remembered ‘freaking out seeing my first paycheck after the taxes were taken out’ and wondering how she was going to live on the money.
Back in the mid-90s Baywatch scored the Guinness World Record for the most widely watched TV show of all time, as in 1996 it was pulling in an estimated global audience of 1.1 billion in 142 countries.
Despite this success the show was apparently made ‘on a shoestring budget’ according to screenwriter Michael Berk, who said they couldn’t afford to pay the cast high salaries.
Meanwhile, during this time in television Jerry Seinfeld managed to get his pay for Seinfeld up to $500,000 per episode and then a whopping $1 million.
The core cast of Friends were making a lot more. (Warner Bros. Television/Getty Images)
Over on Friends the core cast managed to negotiate higher pay deals until by the end of the show’s run they were making $1 million an episode too.
Depending on the prominence of the actor and the role there are some big bucks to be made in the world of television.
Eddie Redmayne is supposedly set to earn £1 million per episode to be in the Sky Atlantic series Day of the Jackal.
Neil Patrick Harris was earning £250,000 a week during the latter stages of How I Met Your Mother, and that’s just from his salary beyond royalties and other earnings.
Baywatch stars were able to turn their work on screen into other lucrative deals, but they were still well below other big TV stars at the time.
Outside of the main cast other actors have shared how much they make from being in popular TV shows, as Stranger Things actor Tristan Spohn played one of the test subjects at the Hawkins Lab.
He said he got about $15,000 from each episode of Stranger Things he was in, and that about $10,000 of that per episode was take-home pay.
