Catt Sadler is leaving E! Entertainment after 12 years with the network. According to a blog post on her website, The Catt Walk, Sadler views her her time at E! as a dream come true, but recently discovered that her co-host Jason Kennedy has been paid nearly twice her salary for years. The “E! News” and “Daily Pop” host says it best herself: the situation marked “a massive disparity.”
Worse still, when Sadler found out about the huge gap between her and Kennedy’s salaries, she went to the network to renegotiate her pay and got nowhere. “Information is power,” she muses. “Or it should be. We are living in a new era. The gender pay gap is shrinking, although admittedly we have a long way to go. And well, I learned this first hand. My team and I asked for what I know I deserve and were denied repeatedly.”
Sadler also told People, “Not only did [E!] refuse to pay me as much as my male counterpart, but they didn’t come close — nowhere close, not even remotely close.”
As Sadler explains in her post, she found the courage to go public with her mistreatment after witnessing hundreds of women speak out as part of the #MeToo movement. “Countless brave women have come forward this year to speak their truth. Females refuse to remain silent on issues that matter most because without our voices, how will we invoke lasting change?” Sadler asks, “How can we make it better for the next generation of girls if we do not stand for what is fair and just today?”
Sadler isn’t the only television personality who spoke out about the gender pay gap this year. Robin Wright, the new lead of “House of Cards,” reportedly received $420K per episode as compared to former co-lead Kevin Spacey’s $500K. Yvette Nicole Brown revealed that, as a series regular on a TV show, she was paid only slightly more than a white male guest star. And “Criminal Minds” actresses Kirsten Vangsness and A.J. Cook held out for pay parity before re-upping their contracts on the long-running CBS procedural.
As Sadler writes, she won’t let her experience with E! discourage her — instead, she’ll use it to help other women. “I will find more work,” she promises. “I will create content with meaning. I will continue to pursue my passions while making my children proud. The way I see it, I have an obligation to be an agent for change.”
Head over to Sadler’s website to read her post in full.
