We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how much “seat fillers” ― people who take the seats of temporarily-absent Oscars guests who’ve got up to pee or socialise ― get paid.
And while those people earn exactly zero dollars and naught point nil cents for the role, the same cannot be said of hosting the event.
Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the 2024 Oscars, shared the exact fee for his 2017 and 2018 hosting gig on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live! when chatting with former Oscars host, Wanda Sykes.
He revealed at the time that his pay was $15,000 for the task, which is honestly less than I’d thought.
It’s still 15k!
That’s true ― but as he pointed out in conversation with Wanda, “It sounds like a lot for one night but it’s months of work leading up to it.”
Wanda said that her fee was “scale, probably” ―scale means the minimum amount SAG-AFTRA members get paid for doing a job.
Jimmy, who shouted out the “below-the-line” striking workers of SAG-AFTRA and the WGA in his Oscars intro this year, suggested “it’s less than that.”
“I realised that out of all the jobs that I have, this one is actually gonna cost me money,” Wanda joked. And Jimmy said that bringing your family members to the event is “where the money starts to add up.”
2010′s co-host Alec Baldwin said of his experience, “They don’t pay you any money; the Oscars pay you like chicken feed. It’s all about the honor of helping to extol film achievement.”
Is the pay always the same?
We don’t know. The Hollywood Reporter put the fee at $15,000-$25,000 in 2013 ― but that was over a decade ago, and it’s unclear if the payment has changed.
Jimmy Kimmel did not speak about his pay for the 2024 Oscars. But hey ― there’s no denying it’s a huge honour, and we don’t think he’ll be strapped for cash any time soon.