Forget Queer Eye for the Straight Guy--Cheap Chic might be a better title for Bravo's hit "make-better" series.
No, producers aren't skimping on the lifestyle overhauls of clueless straight guys--not with the money they're saving on the show's breakout stars, the Fab Five.
The stylish quintet may be fabulous but you'd never know it from their paychecks, according to a talent contract published on the Smoking Gun Website.
Each member of the fivesome makes a measly $3,000 per episode for what has become Bravo's monster summer hit. The show's consistently broken ratings records for the cable net, has become a crossover success on parent company NBC and been sold into syndication to Britain, Iceland, Finland, Australia and New Zealand.
For this, cast members are expected to dispense their trademark Queer Eye advice on a weekly basis and show up to a long list of promotional events. Already, they've taped guest appearances on The Tonight Show and Good Morning, Miami and made cameos at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Worse still, Carson Kressley, Kyan Douglas, Ted Allen, Thom Filicia and Jai Rodriguez are unlikely to get pay hikes any time soon, because they're locked into six consecutive one-year contracts that offer annual raises of just 5 percent, which means they'll earn just an extra $150 per episode next season (barely enough for a full line of grooming products) and then an extra $307.50 the following year.
Nor do the guys enjoy the traditional perks typically offered to their TV brethren. Cast members are forced to fly--gasp--coach when traveling for business and must check into "reasonable accommodations" (read: Motel 6).
(Yet somehow the Queer Eye guys manage to maintain their impeccable sense of style on mere pennies. It's a miracle.)
And while they've reportedly received a sliver of the merchandising pie--including a million-dollar book deal with Clarkson Potter--the Fab Five will not have their voice and/or likeness used to sell "firearms, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, lotteries, gambling products, intimate personal hygiene products, medication and/or intimate apparel."
The contract dirt comes from former Culture Guy, Blair Boone, who's suing the producers for being dumped in favor of Rodriguez after only two episodes.
Boone is asking for $105,000 in damages from Queer Eye LLC, which is the tab for 35 episodes at, you guessed it, $3,000 a pop.