LOOKING BACK

‘Home Improvement’ Star: Gendered Pay Disparity Contributed to Show’s End

Patricia Richardson said she gave ABC executives an ultimatum: Pay me the same as my male counterpart and I’ll stay.

Home Improvement star Patricia Richardson said in a new interview that the mega-hit sitcom may have continued its run if the studio had coughed up enough money to have pay parity between its lead actors—that is, her and Tim Allen. Richardson, who on the show played Allen’s wife, Jill, made the admission during a retrospective discussion with The Los Angeles Times, telling the newspaper that she was offered half the salary Allen was to return for the series’ ninth season: $1 million an episode to Allen’s $2 million. At the time, she admitted to telling her colleagues, “There’s not enough money in the world to get me to do a ninth year… This show is over. It needs to end.” But she still offered a counter to ABC executives: pay me the same as my male counterpart and I’ll stay. “I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much,” she added. “That was my way to say ‘no’ and was a little bit of a flip-off to Disney. I'd been there all this time, and they never even paid me a third of what Tim was making, and I was working my ass off. I was a big reason why women were watching.” The show ultimately ended after its eighth season.