Way to go Charlie Sheen! Two And A Half Men is my favorite sitcom on television. Charlie Sheen is the highest paid actor on TV, pocketing a whopping $825,000 per episode for his hit comedy Two And A Half Men, according to a new poll.
The star’s huge earnings include profits for ownership rights of the program. Sheen is way ahead of his nearest contender William Petersen, who takes home $600,000 per show for his role as Gil Grissom on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Actress Mariska Hargitay is the best paid female in a prime-time TV drama – she earns an estimated $400,000 for every Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) episode she films. The cast of The Simpsons are also well-paid – each voice actor receives $400,000 per episode.
Others on the TV Guide magazine list include American Idol judge Simon Cowell, who gets $50 million per season of the talent show, and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, whose five-year deal with TV network Fox is worth $100 million.
However the highest paid TV celebrity by far is talk show queen Oprah Winfrey – her annual salary from her talk show alone is $385 million.