All the cast beef around the Vanderpump Rules salaries and how much they’re actually worth

It’s not about the pasta, it’s about the pay cheque

4 weeks ago | UPDATED 3 weeks ago

Whether you have watched the show or not, SUR’s heroes (and villains) have probably appeared on your social media feeds.

Maybe you’ve watched the entirety of the Scandoval storyline on TikTok, or have recently seen Ariana Madix shine as the new host of Love Island USA. Either way, everyone has heard something about the cast of Vanderpump Rules.

What is most intriguing, however, is how much they are all making or have made throughout their time on the show, especially if we consider the drama this has caused in recent years.

Whilst no star has categorically revealed Vanderpump Rules salaries, a handful of them have spoken on each other’s income or complained about the Bravo pay cheque. So, after doing some digging, here’s everything we know about the cast’s financial beef.

Ariana Madix has been slammed for making too much money

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A post shared by 🌙 Ariana Madix 🌙 (@arianamadix)

Ariana is estimated to have a net worth of $2 million, which has racked up as a result of her huge earnings per episode, a wide variety of brand deals, cocktail books and her most recent businesses endeavour Something About Her (the sandwich shop she owns with Katie Maloney).

The Villa Blanca bartender made her mark on the show in season two, when she officially moved to SUR. From then on she became a fan favourite, even more so in the last two seasons that unfolded around her breakup with her colleague and partner of nine years, Tom Sandoval.

But the tumultuous breakup of Tom and Ariana after his almost year-long affair with co-star and Ariana’s best friend, Rachel, seemed to cause not only a lot of pain for Ariana herself. Some of her friends and cast mates seemed to have a lot to say about her earnings around the time of her split from Tom.

In discussing her moving out from their shared home, Ariana’s colleagues suggested that she should simply buy herself out of the home, or find somewhere new to live, because she obviously had enough earnings from brand collaborations with the likes of Bic and Uber. Ariana responded to this on Scheana Shay’s, Scheananigans podcast, commenting that she is “not rich” and does not have “millions of dollars.”

Ariana is now rumoured to have left the cast of the upcoming season of Vanderpump Rules, which is being questioned in itself. We don’t blame her after the couple of years she has had.

Rachel Leviss claims she hasn’t made a ‘single penny’

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A post shared by Rachel Leviss (@rachelleviss)

Rachel has been extremely outspoken about how much she earns. As she wasn’t a main cast member for a quite a few seasons, it’s likely she wasn’t earning one of the highest Vanderpump Rules salaries (if anything) for being on the show. Her final couple of seasons took a turn, however, involving her in a lot more drama and therefore offering her much more money for her screen time and prominence in the storyline.

Speaking with Real Housewives of New York City icon, Bethenny Frankel, Rachel claimed that she hadn’t seen a “single penny” in her account following her final season on Vanderpump Rules. Biting back, the boss lady herself, Lisa Vanderpump, confirmed with TMZ that Raquel made a vast $361k for the entirety of season 10. She’s owed a lot of money from Bravo, if this is the case.

To start contradicting Miss Vanderpump herself is a risky route to go down, considering Rachel’s lack of ties with the rest of the cast.

Rachel also told Bethenny that she wanted to be paid the same as Tom and Ariana, which former cast member Stassi Schroeder since commented on. On her podcast Straight Up with Stassi, she told fans that she did not get paid as much as her colleagues after her exit from the show in season four: “I was a year behind people – I just never cared to fight it.”

This prompted Stassi to criticise Raquel’s request, saying “You go and have an affair and then you just get to be paid as if you’ve been on the show for 11 years? That’s fucking crazy.”

It seems as though the average $15,000 to $25,000 per episode has not been enough for some of Vanderpump’s employees, with Rachel’s estimated net worth sitting at $400,000.

She also claimed she received performance-based pay

Explaining what she was told before filming, Rachel basically admitted to ramping up her performance ahead of the show.

Bethenny also told Rachel that she and her costars get paid “in a year less than my interns get paid.”

This prompted Rachel to respond with details on how cast pay cheques are decided on. She said: “One of the things that producers also told me is that you get paid based off your performance from the season prior. So that already set me up to want to perform well going into season 10.”

Lala Kent loves a storyline

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A post shared by Lala Kent (@lalakent)

Lala has not been camera-shy throughout her time on the show, nor has she been quiet about the inner-workings of Vanderpump Rules during press and interviews.

Starting out in season four, Lala joined SUR as a hostess and was quick to involve herself in the day-to-day drama, meaning she easily gained herself a permanent spot as main cast and guaranteed a pay cheque. Speaking with Jason Tartick in 2022, Lala made it clear that she was rewarded for “confrontation and speaking up.”, insinuating that she has most likely cashed in a lot from her various heated arguments and storylines.

In recent years, however, Lala has not held back from criticising fellow cast member, Ariana Madix. With the two latest seasons pretty much revolving around Ariana and Tom’s split, Kent was very vocal about Ariana’s finances as a result of her storyline: “And I have to assume you’re making the same – if not way more. So how can you not afford an apartment?”, she told Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge, on their podcast Two Ts in a Pod.

Whether Lala is frustrated by Ariana’s commitment to her “main character moment” or the pay cheque along with it, she hasn’t been explicit, but it isn’t too bold to assume the latter. Her net worth is estimated to sit at a comfortable $2 million.

Salary renegotiations

Following the Scandoval drama, the cast renegotiated their salaries for season 11, which was reportedly very tricky . Executive producer Alex Baskin admitted this was so difficult due to the many asks of the cast. He told theLos Angeles Times earlier this year: “This is as hard as it’s ever been because typically, we have a rate card, a tenure card, we’ve used in prior seasons. There are all sorts of asks across the board.”

The extremely profitable, and infamous, goat cheese balls from SUR are clearly not covering the monetary demands of the witches of WEHO. And I fear this isn’t the end of the cast drama surrounding their Vanderpump Rules salaries.

For more like this look at controversial Vanderpump Rules salaries and for all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.