“The Hills” Salaries Revealed

By Amanda Pendolino on September 30th, 2009

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The Hills premiered last night, with Kristen Cavallari returning to fulfill promo promises that “the bitch is back.” But Kristen’s evil antics aren’t making headlines this morning; the news is that the cast members’ salaries have been revealed, and the numbers make me want to purge all over my proverbial Christian Louboutins.

According to The Daily Beast, Kristen is being paid $90,000 an episode, which is almost as much as Lauren Conrad was making when she quit the show: $125,000 an episode (or $2.5 million a year). And talk about a diva deal: Lauren’s contract stipulated that no other star’s salary could match hers while she was on The Hills. Audrina Patridge, Lauren “Lo” Bosworth, and Heidi Montag come close: they each make $100,000 a show. It’s one institution that pays its men less: village idiot Spencer Pratt only makes slightly less at $65,000 per show, because he only joined as a regular in 2008. Brody Jenner makes $45,000 an ep.

These are pretty shocking numbers in the reality TV world. Sure, The Hills is MTV’s highest-rated show, but the whole point of reality TV shows is that they’re cheaper to make than scripted fare because they avoid having to pay elite actors, writers, directors. etc. These salaries pretty much defeat that purpose. And to compare, the stars of The Real Housewives series receive a reported $30,000 an episode.