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Kristen Doute appeared on a podcast on Monday, where she opened up about the salary she and her Vanderpump Rules castmates were paid for season one.
As the cast prepares to begin filming its 11th season next month, Kristen looked back on the first set of episodes of the Bravo reality show, admitting that she and her co-stars weren’t making “a ton of money” as she shared the exact amount they received.
“We weren’t making, you know, a ton of money on this show by any means. Like, not episodic,” Kristen explained to hosts Josh Peck and Ben Soffer on the May 29 episode of The Good Guys, via Rate My Bravo on Instagram. “[It was] like, ‘Here’s a little chunk for the whole year.’”
Then, when Kristen burst into laughter when he asked if the amount was “less than $100,000,” Josh pressed, “Far less?”
“Like, way,” she replied. “Season one, we made $10,000. It was actually $5,000, and then they added like, an additional $5,000.
But in 2019, while appearing on Heather McDonald‘s Juicy Scoop podcast, Jax Taylor said he was paid $15,000 for the first season of Pump Rules.
“It was $15,000 to do the whole season,” he claimed. “They were giving us a lot. There was incentives and right off the bat I was getting promotions and deals and things like that.”
As for the more recent seasons, The Hollywood Reporter said in 2020 that the cast had started making a whopping $25,000 per episode after signing new contracts in 2017 and 2018.
As they explained, season six and season seven featured 21 episodes, meaning each person pulled in around $600,000 for each set of episodes, including each season’s reunion special.
At the same time, the outlet also said Lisa Vanderpump was making $50,000 per episode, or over $1 million per season, as both a star of the series and one of its executive producers.
Part three of the three-part Vanderpump Rules season 10 reunion airs Wednesday, June 7, at 9/8c on Bravo.