Ray Romanos $18M Residuals Revealed!

Everybody Loves Raymond star Ray Romano set a Guinness World Record when he was paid nearly $2 million per episode for the beloved show's ninth and final season in 2005.

Two decades on, the actor is part of an elite list of actors still raking in millions of dollars in residuals, long after their shows went off the air.

Fans were stunned to learn, per Forbes, thanks to the show's continued streaming on services such as Paramount+ and Peacock, with some quipping that he 'never has to work again.'

But it’s not a brand new payday for just him.

Streaming channels who host shows often pay a flat fee with little allowance made for how many times it is viewed – or the star power that made it a hit in the first place.

So who’s raking it in from their repeats? And which celebrities are flashing up on our screens year in year out, with no windfall to show for it?

Ray Romano: $18M a year for Everybody Loves Raymond

The 68-year-old, who played the sarcastic sports writer Raymond Barone on the show created by Phil Rosenthal from 1996 to 2005, is worth an estimated $200 million today, with much of his wealth said to come from his residuals and backend profits.

The eighth season of Everybody Loves Raymond - which began airing in 2003 - gained notoriety after a landmark cast contract dispute led by Robert Barone actor Brad Garrett.

Romano became the highest-paid television star in history at the time with his $40 million deal for the season, equating to $1.8 million a week.

Romano's contract renewal also stipulated he would get royalties from syndicated reruns of older episodes - infuriating Garrett, who, in comparison, earned around $160,000 an episode.

Garrett refused to show up for work unless CBS negotiated a new contract - leading to his character being axed from the first episode and threatened with being written out permanently.

His loyal castmates Patricia Heaton, Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle supported him by all calling out sick.

His representative said at the time: 'Ray deserves every penny, all Brad wants is compensation commensurate with what other similarly situated actors have made in the past and are making today.'

Lisa Kudrow (and co-stars): $20M a year for Friends

She might not have filmed a single scene in 22 years but Friends is still a phenomenal money-spinner for actress Lisa Kudrow.

Recently, when asked why she and her four surviving co-stars earn $20 m a year from reruns of the American series, Kudrow, 62, credited her dippy onscreen alter ego, quipping: ‘Because Phoebe Buffay was so great?’

But nerves of steel and a crack team of agents and lawyers were arguably more important in securing the sort of syndication rights that mean Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer never have to work again.

After all, says celebrity public relations consultant Mark Borkowski: ‘It is show [i]business[i] - and there’s nothing more brutal than getting a deal.’

However, he stresses, ‘it really is the lucky few who get millions’.

When Friends debuted in 1994, all its stars bar Courteney Cox were unknowns and had limited bargaining clout - LeBlanc had just $9 in his bank account before landing the role of Joey.

At first each actor was paid a (relatively) paltry $20,000 per episode. 

Fast forward two series and the six were global icons, which is when serious negotiations begun.

Schwimmer, who played Ross, was said to have ensured they argued for pay rises together, so as not to lose leverage. 

By the final two series, they’d not only secured a whopping $1 million each per episode, but two per cent of the show’s syndication revenue from repeats. 

Broadcast in 200 countries and translated into more than 40 languages, Friends has barely been off our screens since.

As Chandler, played by the late Matthew Perry, might have put it: ‘Could we [i]be[i] any richer?’

Pamela Anderson: $4,000 a year for Baywatch  

For many CJ Parker was Baywatch, with her iconic red swimsuit and long tousled blonde hair.

But Anderson, 58, who played the pneumatic lifeguard on the California rescue series, which attracted 1.1billion weekly viewers worldwide at its height, ‘didn’t get a penny’ when it was added to streamer Amazon Prime in 2019, according to her producer son Brandon Lee.

In 2023 he revealed his mum makes just $4,000 a year from Baywatch repeats - a desultory sum he described as a ‘crime’. A former Playboy pin up, Anderson’s pay rose from a reported £1,000 per episode in the first series to $300,000 per episode by her fifth and final series in 1997.

‘The producers of Baywatch made a fortune,’ she said recently. ‘I just didn’t have the representation back then. Or the know-how.’

Co-star David Hasselhoff, also a producer with an ownership stake in the show, is believed to have made as much as $107m in repeats - but hindsight is a wonderful thing, said Anderson, who has reinvented herself as a stage actress and advocate for natural ageing. ‘You don’t realise when you’re doing a TV show that it’s going to be that popular, so you kind of sign your life away.’

Jerry Seinfeld: Up to $402M for every syndication cycle of Seinfeld

Former stand-up comedian, who played a fictionalised version of himself in the hit sitcom Seinfeld co-created with writer, actor and producer Larry David, was earning $1 million an episode by the final season of Seinfeld in 1998.

Indeed he was doing so well, he turned down $4m per episode to make a final, tenth, series.

More importantly, he and David each had a 15 per cent ownership of the show’s backend profits (the amount made from a series after it ends). 

In 2014 New York Magazine revealed he and David made up to $400m every time Seinfeld was syndicated (when a network bought or renewed the rights to the show for a limited period of time or number of episodes). 

Jerry, 72, is now estimated to be worth more than a billion dollars.

Meanwhile Seinfeld’s co-stars, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, on around $500,000 per episode by the last series, have been ‘categorically denied’ backend profits, ‘something that I will go to my grave saying we should have had,’ Alexander has said.

‘We make very little, standard Screen Actors Guild residuals for the reruns.’

Lauren Graham: Nothing for Gilmore Girls  

With a plot centred around a gifted but anxious teen and her loving but feisty mum, Noughties sitcom The Gilmore Girls is resonating with a new teen audience and enjoying a revival on Netflix, Disney+ and ITVX. 

But last year, when Lauren Graham, 58, who starred in all 153 episodes as matriarch Lorelai Gilmore, was asked how much she earns from the Netflix deal, she said the answer was a big fat nothing.

‘There really are no residuals on Netflix,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been paid in love and appreciation.’

Graham was, however, reported to earn $90,000 per episode by the sitcom’s end in 2007 and was then paid a reported $2.5m for a four-episode reboot in 2016.

Aaron Paul: Nothing for Breaking Bad 

As a crystal meth dealer in crime drama Breaking Bad, he made money as fast as enemies. 

But actor Aaron Paul, who played rogue chemistry teacher Walter White’s sidekick Jessie Pinkman, received no such windfall when Netflix started streaming the show – which started on cable network AMC - in 2011.

‘I don’t get a piece from Netflix on Breaking Bad to be totally honest, and that’s insane to me,’ he said in 2023, joining the strike by actors’ unions SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) over low payments.

‘I think a lot of these streamers know they have been getting away with not paying people a fair wage and now it’s time to pony up.’

Paul, 45, was an unknown when he joined series one for an estimated $25,000 an episode, but was said to be earning more than $120,000 an episode by 2013’s finale.

Katie Holmes: Nothing for Dawson's Creek 

Seminal Nineties coming of age drama Dawsons Creek – still available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV - made its cast famous, but not particularly rich. 

Katie Holmes was 19 when she started to play naïve Joey Potter alongside love interest Dawson Leery (played by the late James Van Der Beek).

She and her co-stars are said to have earned around $30,000 each per episode in 1998, rising to $140,000 by the final sixth season in 2003. 

Which isn’t a bad wage for a teenager - Joshua Jackson, who played Pacey Witter said at 19 he ‘would make more money doing four episodes of Dawson’s Creek than most of my friends’ parents made in a year’.

However, Van Der Beek said in 2012: ‘There was no residual money. I was 20. It was a bad contract. I saw almost nothing from that.’

Since he was the show’s lead, the same presumably applied to the others, who hosted a live reading of the series pilot last year to raise funds for Van Der Beek’s treatment for colon cancer.

Holmes, 47, who never replicated the professional success of Dawson’s Creek and is probably most famous for marrying (and divorcing) Tom Cruise, has looked back on the series fondly: ‘I had a ball doing it and it’s really nice to be a part of something that did affect people.’

Mandy Moore: 81 cents for This Is Us 

With a leading lady already known to viewers for her singing career, a clever format with three different timelines and a prime time 9pm slot on NBC, family drama This Is Us was a ratings hit between 2016 and 2022. 

But lead actor Mandy Moore - famous for nineites pop hits such as Candy - who played mum Rebecca Pearson in all 106 episodes and was nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe for her performance, has only seen ‘very tiny, like, 81-cent checks’ for repeats of the show.

Moore, 42, said in 2023 that, while she appreciated how ‘profoundly lucky’ she was to be acting at all, she and her fellow actors were owed more.

‘I’ve had very lean years where I couldn’t get a job and those are precisely the moments when in years past, actors could rely on residuals from their past work to help them get by. 

'The world and business have changed and I’m hoping we can find a meaningful solution moving forward.’

Kimiko Glenn: $27 for Orange Is The New Black  

She was Litchfield Penitentiary’s outspoken inmate Brook Soso in groundbreaking comedy drama Orange is The New Black, and off screen, Glenn, 36, who appeared in 52 episodes over four series, including sexually explicit footage, has been equally vociferous about the lack of money she made from what was one of Netflix’s first original award-winning shows.

In 2023 she revealed she had earned $27.30 (£20) in repeat fees from the show. 

She explained how the show’s stars were ‘internationally famous’, but couldn’t afford cabs to work, and said, after tax, she typically earned $1,850 a month from the series.

‘I think it’s important that we tell these stories,’ said Glenn, who currently has supporting roles in Netflix political thriller The Night Agent and sitcom The Upshaws.

Kelsey Grammer: $10M a year from Frasier 

By the time Grammer finished playing stuffy but lovable Seattle psychiatrist Frasier Crane in 2004, the former Broadway actor was earning a reported $1.5m an episode as the highest paid TV actor of his time.

Being promoted to executive producer in 2000 is thought to have given Grammer, 71, more negotiating clout and although he has never commented on his earnings he is rumoured to make $8.5m in repeat fees every year.

Also starring David Hyde Pierce as Frasier’s similarly uptight brother, the late John Mahoney as their down to earth dad and Jane Leeves as Daphne Moon, Martin’s live in physical therapist (who became the highest paid British actress in history thanks to her role), the series is constantly repeated on Channel 4 and available on Paramount+.

Dad of eight Grammer, better known for his colourful personal life than subsequent acting roles, put his syndication fees to use after his 2017 divorce to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Camille Meyer. ‘Thank you, Mr. Kelsey Grammer, for all that Frasier money,’ she said last year. ‘I am living my best life.’

Bob Saget: Up to $2,000 for Full House  

With themes of blended families and male caregivers ABC sitcom Full House, which aired from 1987 to 1995, was somewhat ahead of its time, and has been regularly streamed in America on Nickelodeon and Disney’s Hulu ever since.

Saget, who played single dad Danny Tanner, raising three daughters with the help of his best friend and brother-in-law, was estimated to be earning up to £50,000 an episode by the series finale. 

But, he said in a 2010 interview, when the show stopped, the money dried up.

‘There’s no Full House money. I didn’t own the show. You get nothing. Residual checks on shows are nothing,’ he said. 

‘If you’re doing a show and you’re not an executive producer and own it, then you get residuals which can amount to checks from $2 (£1.50) to $2,000 (£1,500).’

Saget reprised his role for a Full House reboot on Netflix in 2016 but otherwise focused on edgy stand-up comedy that made him something of a risky proposition to mainstream producers. 

After his death in 2022 aged 65 from a suspected heart attack or stroke, a source told the Sun: ‘The value in Full House was that it made him a household name and brought more work. 

'In and of itself, it did not make him outrageously rich. 

'He still had to take other jobs.’

Charlie Higson: $2 per episode for Vic Reeves Big Night Out  

This was another Nineties comedy, also a hit on Channel 4, but Charlie Higson, who played various roles including Hugh Bond the Heretic and the Applauding Undertaker on sketch show Vic Reeves Big Night Out in 1990, did not get as rich as the Friends cast.

Last month Higson, 67, revealed screenshots of $2 payments for repeats of the nine episodes he appeared in. 

While the series helped launch the careers of its stars Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, it has only been repeated sporadically since. 

Higson, who became a bestselling novelist, joked on social media: ‘My other life as an actor is still paying off big time!’