E! presenter Catt Sadler is leaving the channel after more than a decade, and she’s not going quietly.
The longtime host of the entertainment channel’s ‘E! News’ revealed on her website on Tuesday (19 December) that she quit because her employer denied her a pay raise, after she discovered that her male co-host, Jason Kennedy, had been making “close to double” her salary for the past several years.
“How can I operate with integrity and stay on at E if they’re not willing to pay me the same as him?” she wrote. “Or at least come close? How can I accept an offer that shows they do not value my contributions and paralleled dedication all these years?
“How can I not echo the actions of my heroes and stand for what is right no matter what the cost? How can I remain silent when my rights under the law have been violated?”
E!, in a carefully worded statement, told HuffPost: “E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender. We appreciate Catt Sadler’s many contributions at ‘E! News’ and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.”
Catt also hosts the two-hour daytime show ‘Daily Pop’, and gave a disheartening account of her contract talks when she spoke to People.
Calling her gig a “dream job”, Catt said she adored Jason Kennedy, her “TV husband” who started the same year she did. But now she’s a woman on a mission.
“The way I see it,” she wrote on her site, “I have an obligation to be an agent for change.”
This story originally appeared on HuffPost.