March is Women’s History Month, and as such I’ve decided to revisit one of the best Netflix shows to binge watch: Orange is the New Black. Jenji Kohan’s prison dramedy (which is available with a Netflix subscription) was one of the first hit shows on the streamer, putting it on the map alongside House of Cards. While it was a game changer for the TV industry as a whole, it’s upsetting to hear how poorly the cast was compensated.
The Orange is the New Black cast became household names thanks to the show’s wild popularity, but unfortunately, that did’t necessarily translate into a big paycheck. This is seemingly because streaming was an experiment in its early days, but I think that with the popularity of the show and the level of fame that the cast was dealing with during its run, they deserved to be paid better. Let’s break it all down.
The Cast Of OITNB Has Spoken Out About Their Poor Pay
OITNB had a number of viral moments throughout its run, including the death of characters like Poussey. Given how much the show was part of the pop culture zeitgeist, one might assume the cast made a ton of money. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
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A story by THR examined this pay issue on the beloved Netflix series only a few years ago. The cast didn’t really know what they were getting into with the groundbreaking streaming series, and reportedly made the “absolute bare minimum” SAG rate at the start, under $1,000 per episode. This sum might be baffling to fans, who saw just how popular Orange is the New Black was immediately. A cast member who wished to remain anonymous spoke about the juxtaposition between the show’s popularity and their pay, telling the publication:
As the seasons progressed, we started to get more disgruntled about money, mostly because of how incredibly popular the show was. And then it felt, like, ‘Well, my friends on network shows are incredibly wealthy.’
This disconnect is startling, and is something I’ve thought about a ton while recently re-watching the hit series. The ensemble of actors helped to make streaming shows a mainstay of pop culture, and they brought nuanced and thoroughly enjoyable takes to each of the Litchfield inmates. And their work is arguably even more impressive on the re-watch.
The cast started talking about their pay issues when Brook Soso actress Kimiko Glenn posted a viral video about the $27.30 royalties check she received during the pandemic. Emma Myles, who played Leanne, spoke to The New Yorker about the lack of money made throughout her tenure on OITNB, saying:
When you’re a kid, you have this idea: once I’m on something that people actually see, I’ll be rich, and I’ll have a house that has a bathtub. And you look around after being on a hit show, and you’re, like, Wow, I’m still in the same one-bedroom apartment. Was this how it was supposed to be?
In some ways these accounts have soured my experiencing watching Orange is the New Black again from the beginning. While watching Season 1 and 2 I couldn’t help but think about how little the cast was paid, and how hopeful they might have been about the future during those early days. The show has aged rather well, but the behind the scenes drama is a shadow looming over my experience on the re-watch. In some ways, this feels like a symptom of a larger problem about women not being paid the same rate as their male counterparts.
Orange is the New Black is streaming in its entirety over on Netflix. The service has a number of new projects arriving on the 2026 TV schedule, with the industry now seemingly having a better system for compensating actors.