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Gwyneth Paltrow Talks “Disparity” Between Her Salary and Iron Man Costar Robert Downey Jr.’s: “It’s S—ty”

Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow opened up about the salary discrepancies between her and costar Robert Downey Jr.

His character in The Avengers might refer to himself as a “genius, billionaire,” and in real life, Robert Downey Jr. isn’t that far off from Tony Stark. In a new interview with Variety, his costar and on-screen love interest Gwyneth Paltrow used Downey Jr.’s sizable salary to highlight what she calls the “painful” Hollywood pay gap between men and women. 

“Look, nobody is worth the money that Robert Downey Jr. is worth,” the Goop creator, 43, told Variety (via Page Six) of her longtime friend and costar. “But if I told you the disparity, you would probably be surprised.”

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man
Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man

The mother of two is one of the featured cover stars on Variety’s “Power of Women” issue, alongside Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek, and more, and she wasn’t afraid to get candid about the discrepancies between her salary and that of her male costars. 

Gwyneth Paltrow Variety Cover

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“Your salary is a way to quantify what you’re worth,” she noted. “If men are being paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels s—ty.”

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In 2015, Forbes listed Paltrow as being the 12th highest-paid actress in the world, earning an estimated $9 million, mostly from endorsement deals, over the past year. Downey Jr. was named the highest paid actor in the world, making $80 million over the past 12 months. Further illustrating Paltrow’s point, the highest-paid actress on the Forbes’ list, Jennifer Lawrence, made $52 million last year — a whopping $28 million less than Downey Jr. 

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