Star hasn’t received a penny years after breaking into Netflix top 10-Asyia Iftikhar-Entertainment – Metro

Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham has revealed that Netflix hasn’t paid her anything in residuals since the show arrived on the platform.

The series, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, aired on the WB from 2000 to 2007 amassing a dedicated fanbase invested in the chaotic life of mother and daughter duo Lorelai (Lauren) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel).

All seven seasons arrived on Netflix in 2016 alongside the four-episode special, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which checked back in with the titular family a decade on from the finale.

Since then it has been a certified hit for the streamer and over the past few years it has consistently broken into the Netflix top 10 during the autumn.

At the end of 2023, viewing figures showed that Gilmore Girls had amassed 505.8 million viewing hours, outpacing major shows like Better Call Saul, Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory.

And, like clockwork, Gilmore Girls re-entered Nielsen’s top 10 streaming chart in October 2024 with an impressive 640M minutes watched within a week.

Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham doesn’t see a penny from Netflix despite Gilmore Girls’ popularity (Picture: Getty Images)

Despite its overwhelming success, which only seems to increase annually, the 58-year-old actor told Jimmy Kimmel in a new interview that she is not seeing a penny for it.

Residuals are payments to a writer, actor or director for when their work is re-used and was a key issue for creatives during the Hollywood strikes in 2023.

Jimmy shared a fan question asking her just how much she gets in residuals.

She replied, laughing: ‘There really are no residuals on Netflix.

‘Really?’ Jimmy asked in a shocked voice. To which she said: ‘Yeah, sorry! But I’ve been paid in love.’

Elsewhere, she added: ‘We have definitely reached more people than we were reaching on The WB. … Now it’s trickled into younger people, older people, men whose kids or wives probably have forced them to watch it. I get stopped a lot. It surprises me every time though. I don’t know why.’

She revealed the news to a shocked Jimmy Kimmel (Picture:
Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube)

In 2023, the stars of Netflix’s original series, Orange Is The New Black, claimed they are not fairly compensated for their work and revealed their low residual payments, per The New Yorker.

Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul told the Los Angeles Times that he doesn’t ‘get a piece’ from Netflix.

And it is an issue across TV, with This Is Us actor Mandy Moore revealing that she has been paid in pennies.

How much the creatives get paid varies from contract to contract.

Gilmore Girls falls under the revenue-based residual system, which applies when a film or series is licensed to a streaming platform with a percentage of the fee paid to the studio by the distributor. 

As for Lauren, she recently starred in the new Tubi show, The Z-Suite, as agency firm leader Monica who clashes heads with her Gen Z employees in this new era of social media.

Metro has reached out to Netflix for comment.

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