How Much Money Does The Cast Of Empire Make

Terrance Howard did not keep his own empire under control, and the consequences might have been severe for him.

Being in the business for over 25 years now, you'd think that Howard would be smarter with his money, especially when he's one of the highest-paid actors on television (and at one point the highest-paid MCU star). But there's a keyword there; one of the highest-paid actors on television, not the highest-paid. The highest-paid actors on television are reserved for actors like Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory and Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones, who both received well over a million dollars per episode on their respective shows.

He did receive close to $10 million for one role in one of his most famous shows, but that's a relatively low number when looking at other actor's salaries on just as successful shows. But there is one good thing in this situation; he was paid just as much as his female leading lady... and way more than another certain co-star who made a stink for being underpaid.

If we're being really cryptic, read on and find out which show and its co-stars we're talking about and what Howard did to make about $10 million on one project while turning down about the same amount of money on another.

He Tried To Conceal Money From His Ex-Wife

In 2019, The Blast acquired court documents that stated Howard's ex-wife, Michelle Ghent, had filed a lawsuit against Howard and claimed her ex-husband had been hiding his money from her. She estimated that he owed her above $1 million in back support.

Within the documents, she revealed that Howard had earned $9,675,000 for his time on Fox's hit show, Empire. Ghent said Howard was paid $125,000 an episode in the first season but earned a raise to 175,000 per episode for the following seasons. There was a total of six seasons of the show.

She accused Howard of giving all his Empire paychecks to his third wife's company as payment for "management fees." From there, he was paid a salary of $109,000 a year. Because of this deal, Ghent was unsure how much Howard actually owed her. She filed all of this with the court, demanding Howard pay up as soon as possible. The judge eventually ruled in Howard's favor, however.

In 2019, it was revealed that these numbers could have been wrong. They seem to be lower than what was revealed at the time of Jussie Smollett's scandal. Smollett turned himself in to police, claiming he'd staged an attack on himself as a publicity stunt because he was unhappy with his Empire salary. He was charged with making a false police report.

According to a "well-placed source" for HuffPost, Smollett made $65,000 per episode, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, he was making $125,000 an episode at the time of the incident. THR's source described it as "three tiers of cast salaries."

They also revealed that both Howard and Taraji P. Henson started out earning between $110,000 and $120,000 per episode and were eventually paid between $225,000 and $250,000 in 2016 during season two.

There were 12 episodes in season one but 18 episodes in all the other five seasons, so both actors could have walked away with anything between $1.3 million and $1.4 million for just one season. For season two, earning between $225,000 and $250,000, they could have earned anything between $4 million and $4.5 million.

Going off of THR's numbers, it looks like Howard, along with Henson, could have made way more than $10 million for their six seasons of Empire.

Throwing a spanner in the works, Variety reported even weirder numbers. According to them, Smollett was earning $20,000 per episode in 2016, while Howard and Henson were earning $175,000 an episode.

We'll never really know which numbers are right, but they are something to think about.

Was The Cast Of 'Empire' Underpaid Considering The Success Of The Show?

According to Deadline, in 2015, season two of Empire was "pulling in the series' largest audience yet with 20.8 million viewers," which was huge for the time. Fox was pushing the show like crazy.

Bustle assumed that the cast's salary had room for negotiation with all of that success, but it seems not so much. We never heard any of the cast member's salaries making it to Big Bang, Game of Thrones, or even The Walking Dead heights.

This is a shame because the show did really well and had excellent ratings into its later seasons. So we should really be asking why Fox didn't pay the cast of Empire as much as its fellow series. Again, we don't exactly have all the numbers and evidence that the cast was truly underpaid for all the success that Empire brought Fox, but it does seem suspicious. Turning down Iron Man 2's $8 million salary seems like a foolish decision now.

Next: Everything We Know About Terrence Howard's Wealth And Career

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