Holland Taylor confirmed she let her “Two and a Half Men” contract expire because the hit sitcom “never paid me very well.”
“I was paid on that show what I had made on a series like eight years before or something,” Taylor explained on the Oct. 21 episode of the “Alchemy with Anthony Mason” podcast, noting that her four Emmy nominations for her performance as the extravagantly wealthy Evelyn Harper didn’t help boost her salary.
“They never gave me raise,” the 83-year-old actress continued. “They usually do, just as a courtesy. I loved a lot about that show, but they were not full of courtesies.”
Holland revealed that producers “were astonished” when she declined to renew her contract as a core cast member after six seasons, and instead returned in a guest role for the remainder of the series.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to be under contract anymore,’ and they said, ‘We can’t pay you any more money,’” Taylor said. “First of all, I said, ‘You could actually pay me the cost of this building, but don’t bother, because I don’t want to continue on under contract.’”
Taylor said she told producers, “I will visit the show occasionally if you want,” noting that she had an important role as Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen’s on-screen mom.
Taylor insisted that CBS “didn’t want to” pay her more because “they were just trying to protect themselves against giving me a raise of any significance.”
In fact, Taylor claimed that Cryer, 61, “quadrupled his salary” when his contract was up, but she didn’t get the same treatment.
Taylor appeared in all 12 seasons of “Two and a Half Men,” which ran from 2003 to 2015.
Sheen, 61, was famously replaced by Ashton Kutcher before Season 9 due to his erratic behavior.
Chuck Lorre, who co-created the hit series, revealed in his new memoir, “Sitcom,” that Hugh Grant nearly took Sheen’s job.
“We met with him. He confided that he was terrified of working in front of a live audience. No problem, I assured him. I could get rid of the audience,” Lorre wrote.
Grant, according to Lorre, was offered the staggering sum of $750,000 an episode and a four-day workweek, but the “Notting Hill” star ultimately turned down the job.
The post Holland Taylor name-drops the 9-time Emmy-winning show that ‘never’ paid her ‘well’ appeared first on Page Six.
