A list of the highest paid black actors on television

Mo Money: The Highest Paid Black Actors On Television (And Some Notable Others)

- By Bossip Staff
10 of 15

Black actors might demand big checks for work on the silver screen, but for TV, not so much…

A List Of The Highest Paid Black Actors On TV

Via Examiner

Simon Cowell an executive producer and co-owner of “The X Factor” and “Got Talent” TV franchises, is ranked at the top of TV Guide’s list of the highest-paid TV stars of 2013. He made $95 million in the past year, according to TV Guide, which made the announcement on Aug. 20, 2013. The full list is in TV Guide’s Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2013 issues, which goes on sale on Aug. 22, 2013.

Cowell is a judge on “The X Factor” U.S., which airs in the U.S. on Fox. According to TV Guide, Kelly Rowland (who joined “The X Factor” U.S. judging panel in 2013) is the next-highest-paid judge on the show: Her “X Factor” salary is $2.5 million per season. That’s about the same amount that TV Guide says Paula Abdul made as a judge “The X Factor” U.S. in 2011. Abdul lasted one season on the show before she was fired, along with judge Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones.

Although TV Guide did not report the salaries of the other two “X Factor” U.S. judges of 2013 (Demi Lovato and Paulina Rubio), the Hollywood Reporter claims that Lovato’s “X Factor” salary was doubled to slightly more than $2 million (compared to her reported $1 million “X Factor” salary in 2012), while Rubio’s “X Factor” salary in 2013 is about $1.5 million.

Sharon Osbourne (who is a judge on “The X Factor” U.K.) is also on the list, which ranks the stars’ salaries only for U.S. TV shows. Therefore, only Osbourne’s reported $1 million annual salary for co-hosting CBS’s “The Talk” was included for her inclusion on the list. Osbourne’s “X Factor” U.K. salary is about £1.5 million (or $2.35 million in U.S. dollars), according to the Daily Mirror and The Sun.

Cowell and Howard Stern were each tied for No. 1 on Forbes’ 2013 list of highest-paid TV personalities list, which counted the stars’ total salaries from June 2012 to June 2013. Cowell and Stern earned $95 million each in that time period, according to Forbes.

Suffice to say, all the folks that are REALLY breaking the bank on television are white, but you can hit the flippy to see where WE rank and just how far African-Americans still have to go in comparison to their paler peers.

All salaries listed are per episode with the exception of daytime TV hosts.

Images via WENN/Splash

Laurence Fishburne, Hannibal $175,000

Blair Underwood, Ironside $120,000

Kerry Washington, Scandal $80,000

Isaiah Washington, The 100 $35,000

Kenan Thompson $25,000 per episode

Queen Latifah, The Queen Latifah Show $5-10 million

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Michael Strahan, Live with Kelly and Michael $4 million

Aisha Tyler, The Talk $500,000

Crazy that out of a list of almost 200 actors, these are the only black thespians to appear on the list.

On the following pages you’ll find some other notable non-black actors and actresses from some of our favorite shows that made the cut.

Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy $350,000

Michael C. Hall, Dexter $300,000

Anna Paquin, True Blood $275,000

Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad $225,000

Ashton Kutcher, Two and a Half Men $750,000

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