During the 2023 Hollywood strikes, Mandy Moore shocked a lot of people when she revealed that, despite a reported 18 billion streaming hours on Hulu, she only made “pennies” in residuals from This Is Us. A few months later, Aaron Paul shared that he did not earn any streaming residuals from his Emmy-winning role on Breaking Bad. Over on the production side of things, the writers for Suits revealed that even though it was one of the most-streamed properties on Netflix that year with over three billion minutes watched, they’d only made a couple of hundred dollars each. Basically, actors, writers, and creators were getting screwed while streaming executives were making bank.

Like Suits and Breaking Bad, Gilmore Girls picked up a ton of new fans after it started streaming on Netflix. Lorelai Gilmore herself, Lauren Graham, is busy promoting her new series, The Z-Suite. During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! recently, Lauren revealed that she doesn’t make much at all in GG residuals. Why? Because there’s “no residuals on Netflix.”

Lauren Graham is spilling some hot Luke’s coffee when it comes to her paycheck. The Gilmore Girls alum, who starred alongside Alexis Bledel on the WB series from 2000 to 2007 and in the 2016 four-episode revival on Netflix, detailed how much she gets paid now that the show has become popular on streaming platforms.

“There really are no residuals on Netflix,” Lauren said during a March 19 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “But I’ve been paid in love and appreciation.”

While Lauren said she doesn’t make money from residuals—payments typically made to actors and the creative teams behind TV shows due to reruns, syndication or streaming deals—actors have been trying to make changes in Hollywood, with residuals being key discussion point of both the writer and actor strikes in 2023. (At the time, Mandy Moore also admitted her This Is Us streaming residuals were “very tiny, like 81-cent checks.”)

And for Lauren, her lack of compensation may be surprising to fans who have seen how much the show skyrocketed in popularity after it started streaming on Netflix.

“We have definitely reached more people than we were reaching on The WB,” Lauren continued. “And now it’s trickled into younger people, older people, men whose kids or wives probably have forced them to watch it. Yeah, I get stopped a lot. It surprises me every time though.”

Although the 58-year-old—who dated fellow Parenthood alum Peter Krause from 2010 to 2021—may not be growing her bank account as a result of her time on the show, she has been open about her undying appreciation for getting to play Lorelai Gilmore.

“It’s the best part I ever had,” Lauren said during a February appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I love doing it, and I think it was really wonderful. It’s just that thing where it was the perfect material at the perfect time with the perfect writer—and it just means so much to me.”

[From E News Online]

This is wild. During the strikes, Sean Gunn also mentioned that he was receiving almost nothing in GG residuals. Just like Breaking Bad and Suits, Gilmore Girls has made a ton of money for Netflix. In fact, Netflix made more than $8 billion in 2024. How much does it hurt their baseline if they shelled out an extra like $500 million to pay people what they’re owed? I thought that part of the strike negotiations was to make sure actors earned more money from streaming content. Apparently, the deal mainly applied to new properties and are dependent on them meeting certain streaming numbers. According to THR, many of them have met the threshold for bonuses.

I grew up watching Gilmore Girls, from mid-high school through just after college graduation. It will always hold a special place in my heart. I cannot believe that it’s been 25 years since it first aired! I did not have any type of crisis when I turned 40 last year, but I definitely had some sort of internal reckoning when I turned 32 and realized that I was now the same age that Lorelai was during the first season, only she was a badass with a 16-year-old and I was struggling with a two-year-old. It makes me so angry to learn that none of them are getting any residual money.

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Photos credit: M10s/TheNews2/Cover Images, Eric Charbonneau and Marion Curtis for Netflix, Getty