One of the biggest sitcoms of the 1990s might have continued for one more season had star Patricia Richardson received a pay improvement.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Friday, the 73-year-old actress, who starred as Jill Taylor on “Home Improvement,” revealed the sitcom ended after ABC turned down her request to be paid as much as her co-star Tim Allen.
Richardson told the newspaper that during production of Season 8, she decided she didn’t want to continue with the show for several reasons, including her desire to spend more time with her children. But ABC offered her $1 million an episode to return for a ninth season, while Allen would be paid $2 million, she said.
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Although Allen reportedly accepted this offer, Richardson had no interest. “I told everybody, there’s not enough money in the world to get me to do a ninth year,” she said. “This show is over. It needs to end.” So according to the actress, she asked ABC to give her the same deal Allen was reportdly offered: $2 million an episode and an executive producer credit. But she was certain the network would say no, and she was right.
“I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much,” she recalled to the Times. “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…
