At the time of his very public meltdown and split from Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen was one of sitcom TV’s highest-ever paid stars at a reported $1.8 million an episode. One of his co-stars let her contract lapse after Season 6 for very different reasons.
Holland Taylor, who played the overbearing mother of Sheen and Jon Cryer’s characters, says she no longer wanted to be tied to the show by contract.
“When the six years was up, I said, ‘I don’t want to be on a contract anymore but I will visit the show occasionally if you want,’” Taylor recalled recently on the Alchemy with Anthony Mason podcast.
“In fact, they were astonished because when your contract runs out is when people usually back up the [Brink’s] truck,” she said. “And they never paid me very well on that show. I was paid on that show what I had made on a series like eight years before or something.”
Taylor also points out that she was a four-time Emmy nominee for the show.
“They said, ‘We can’t pay you any more money.’ 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.”
The Emmy-winning actress says the powers that be on the CBS show kept arguing about money.
“They said, ‘But we can’t afford to give you more.’ I said, ‘I’m cool with it. I just will come back as a guest some from time to time.’”
Taylor did, however, point out that, along with Sheen massive salary, others on the show got pay bumps.
“John quadrupled his salary or something like that,” she said.
“I loved a lot about that show,” she continued, “but they were not full of courtesies.”
