Sophia Bush took home around $3,000 per episode for One Tree Hill.
Sophia Bush reveals how much she earned per episode on One Tree Hill
The 43-year-old actress appeared as Brooke Davis, one of the main characters in The WB/ CW drama series, from 2003 to 2012, but she admitted the difference in pay between actors was “wild”.
Speaking at a Tech Futures panel, she said: “Everybody was coming from something.
“I had been the philanthropy chair of my sorority at USC.
“So, the difference in pay scale was wild.
“Once I paid 10 per cent to my managers, 10 per cent to my agents, five per cent to my lawyers, a publicist fee, my taxes, and the $3,000-a-month that my two-bedroom apartment in Wilmington cost me, I was taking home about $3,000 per episode.”
In July, Sophia admitted she wasn’t “really given the opportunity” to negotiate her salary during the series.
When asked on The Burnouts podcast if she ever got a chance to discuss her earnings with show bosses, she said: “We weren’t really given the opportunity to do that.
“They would always tell us we were on the verge of getting cancelled so that we wouldn’t try.”
However, ahead of season four, her legal team stepped in and stood up for her.
She said: “They just said, ‘Listen, we know none of the girls are making what the boys are making.
“‘But you cannot pay her a third of what the woman making the least amount of money on the show is making.’
“They really went to bat for me.”
Despite her pay rise, Sophia was still earning “under 20 per cent” of what her male co-stars – who included her ex-husband Chad Michael Murray – were making.
She said: “I was finally being paid equally to the second-lowest paid woman on the cast.
“So, under 20 percent of what my male co-star was making on the show.
“Part of the reason they like to make teen television is because they don’t really have to pay young people very much money.
“Because I had been an added character – even though I’d be a series regular. I was essentially told, ‘This is all we can afford to pay you. Take it or leave it. It’s never going to get any better than this.’
“It was a baptism by fire in the financial space. You want to work so you say yes, but when you make money, 10 per cent goes to your agent and 10 per cent goes to your manager and five percent goes to your lawyer. Then you have to buy into your union and you have to figure out how to incorporate a business.”
