Just how much do Housewives get paid? A recent report breaks the silence and finally talks dollars and cents. When it comes to the Real Housewives of New York, we know that both Ramona and Luann are being paid $500,000 for this upcoming season five but Sonja did not get the same increase. Sonja will not reveal her salary, “A lady never talks about her salary.” Jill Zarin has never earned half a million dollars for one season but what she has revealed is that the amount she earned for season four was equal to what she earned the first three seasons combined. While Kelly Bensimon may not have gotten the full increase in salary, Jill Zarin and Alex McCord getting fired seems to have saved Bravo around one million dollars.
When a new series premiers with all new faces, they’re all paid the same but from season to season as they all get increases, some get more than others, why? Because some are more popular than others.
On an established series, new Housewives are a bit taken advantage of during their first season as they film the same as all of the other ladies but never earn anywhere near what the veterans earn. The more popular the Housewife, the more money they make. Just because they are on the same show for the same amount of seasons does not guarantee them the same salary. Each woman makes their own deal with Bravo.
Bravo does track these Housewives popularity, it’s another reason they practically insist that the Housewives join Twitter, but Twitter followers and viewer Tweets are just one way that Bravo tracks the popularity of their Housewives. Bravo encourages the Housewives to write blogs as it provides feedback in the form of comments. While Bravo only publishes a portion of the comments on their web site, the feedback is invaluable, free opinion polls for their marketing department.
Viewer feedback will even dictate what previews will be seen and which housewife appears in the ads for the show. Notice you rarely see Sheree in a promo ad unless she’s arguing with another Housewife.
NeNe was a fan favorite during season one, her quick wit and hysterical one-liners made her truly the break out star of Real Housewives of Atlanta. Reports claimed that all of the Atlanta Housewives earned $360k for the second season. Kim and NeNe went to producers after season two insisting on not only a raise, but on several other perks like designer clothes, dry cleaning and their electric bills paid. (as their electric was utilized during filming) They threatened to walk out if they didn’t get what they wanted, they won. On the other hand it is reported that Sheree is now an ex-housewife because she wanted to be paid the same as Kim and NeNe. Bravo said nope. There is no way of knowing if Sheree would have been back next season had she just kept quiet and continued to collect what Bravo offered her.
Published reports have NeNe at a cool million for this most recent season with Kim right behind at $750k. As for the rest of the cast, Sheree earned $700k, Kandi earned $550k with both Phaedra and Cynthia at $375k.
The biggest problem with Sheree is that she had no storyline but it didn’t help that fans were not sympathetic to her, she even tried to bring on the drama this season by outting Kandi and her comments about Kim Zolciak but it was too little too late. She tried to encourage a wedding for her future but the truth is, Sheree never really found a fan base and coupled with no storyline, it was probably not the best time to ask for a raise.
Reports are that the Beverly Hills Housewives were the highest paid Housewives for a first season. These weren’t unknown entities, with names like Kim Richards and Camille Grammer salaries started out in the mid 6-figures and went up from there for season two.
Beverly Hills was also the first franchise to have “Friends Of The Housewives”, so how much did they get paid for the same amount of filming, drama and headaches? A Pittance! They were not paid as a housewife, more like an extra in a movie scene. Let’s hope Bravo smartens up and hires Brandi Glanville, pay her what she’s worth and let her go at it!
Bravo pays all of their cast members including husbands and children. How much do they earn? That hasn’t been revealed but reports have Peter Thomas earning the highest on his series with Kroy and Apollo bringing up the rear (no pun intended). I guess nice guys do finish last.
