Two and a Half Men star responds to ‘insane’ rumours about her salary - The Independent
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Melanie Lynskey has set the record straight on her earnings during her time on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men.
The 49-year-old Yellowjackets actor played Rose, a neighbour of Charlie (Charlie Sheen) who becomes an obsessed stalker, in 63 episodes of the CBS comedy.
She went into detail about her finances on the show after a comment on Instagram suggested she had earned between $200,000 and $300,000 per episode.
“Hey! Sorry, but this insane number is floating around on the internet and I must tell you how wrong it is,” Lynskey wrote. “I only did 63 out of 262 episodes of that show. I made literally one tenth of that stated number per episode.
According to Lynskey, she started work on the show earning $20,000 per episode, which increased by five per cent each season.
As she noted, however, the majority of her appearances came early in the show’s run, with “more than half of the episodes I did [coming] in the first two seasons”.
“The highest paycheck I got on the show was I think $43,000 for one episode in the final season,” she explained. “This is before agents, managers, business [managers’] cuts, and taxes, so you take home around 50 per cent of what you are paid.”
The Kiwi actor, who is also known for roles in The Last of Us and Heavenly Creatures, nonetheless looked back on her work on Two and a Half Men with fondness.
“I was extremely grateful for the job and for the money,” she said. “It allowed me to pay my small mortgage and pay bills and be able to work in indie movies and build a career.
“But there is this insane idea that I made millions of dollars and it’s so ridiculous.”
Sheen’s own salary for Two and a Half Men was considerably higher, with the actor said to be earning $800,000 per episode during the show’s early seasons – making him one of the highest paid performers on TV at the time.
As the show went on, Sheen’s salary increased substantially, with reports suggesting that the mercurial star was earning as much as $1.8m per episode by the show’s eighth season, on top of syndication fees and additional profits.
He famously departed the show following its eighth season, and was replaced by Ashton Kutcher for the remainder of Two and a Half Men’s 12-season run.
