Racism in the entertainment industry.
Actor Terrence Howard has sued the Creative Artists Agency, saying they owe him up to $120 million for not getting him pay comparable to what white actors were getting, particularly those “white kids” on Big Bang Theory. This is a serious charge of racism in the entertainment industry. But on closer inspection, its merit is dubious.
Keep in mind, Terrence Howard seems certifiably loony. He claims to remember being in the womb, insists that 1 * 1 = 2, says he can create a planet with no gravity, claims to have invented virtual reality (invented a year before he was born), and despite not even having a Bachelor’s degree, claimed a PhD in Chemical Engineering from a school that he never attended and that doesn’t offer that program. So it’s fair to doubt anything he says.
Here’s what he says.
- His maximum pay per episode for Empire was $350,000 an episode.
- Big Bang Theory actors were getting between $2 and 3 million per episode.
- Empire had 28 million viewers per episode.
- Big Bang Theory had 11 million viewers per episode.
His claim about his own maximum pay per episode appears to be accurate, but the only one of the four claims that is.
His claim about Big Bang Theory stars’ pay per episode is wildly inflated. Multiple sources report the per-show earnings of the show’s top five stars maxing out at $1 million per show, not the “$2 million, damn hear $3 million an episode” Terrence Howard claims.
His claim about Empire’s viewership is also wildly inflated. In 2017, Forbes wrote that first and second season viewership of Empire was 17.33 million and 15.73 million, impressive, but far below the 28 million Howard claimed. And according to Variety, viewership declined sharply, with the season 4 finale drawing only 5.3 million viewers, the season 5 finale falling to 4.1 million, and the season 6 finale drawing only 2.9 million (although, to be fair, this was an unplanned finale, due to the pandemic shutting down production).
His claim about Big Bang Theory viewership is equally inaccurate. According to Statista, Big Bang Theory drew 8.4 million its first season, 10 million its second season, then increasing to between 18 and 20 million in seasons 6 through 11 – above Empire’s peak – before falling off to 17.44 million in its last season, still above the best Empire did.
If we compare each show’s 5th season, Empire drew around 4 million per episode (assuming all shows drew as well as the finale) while Big Bang Theory had just a titch under 16 million per episode, nearly 4X as many viewers.
We can also look at what top dramatic and comedic television actors get paid. Wikipedia has an entry on highest paid TV actors with a convenient inflation-adjusted column. It’s very comedy heavy. Of the top 24, 20 are in comedies, 3 in dramas, and 1 in a thriller (spots 25 and 26 are actresses in Big Little Lies, a “black comedy drama,” so classify that however you want). The three dramatic actors are Jennifer Aniston (also on the list as a comedic actor for the alleged comedy, Friends) and Reese Witherspoon for The Morning Show and James Gandolfini for The Sopranos. The thriller actor is Chris Pratt in The Terminal List. These four actors are, obviously, top commodities in the entertainment industry. Howard is an excellent actor, as well, but he simply doesn’t have the resume of those four.
All in all, it looks as though Terrence Howard is once again making things up and fantasizing about his own worth. Perhaps he deserved more than $350,000 per episode on Empire. Nothing here tells us that he wasn’t. But his bases for comparison will presumably never show up in a court filing, because his attorney – I would assume – will feel constrained to have somewhat more respect for the truth.