Jessica Chastain is in Catt Sadler’s corner. The Oscar nominee showed her support after the E! News host announced on Tuesday, December 19, that she was leaving the network because her male cohost Jason Kennedy was earning “double” her salary.
“WOW this is so disappointing,” Chastain, 40, tweeted on Wednesday, December 20. “When are companies like @e_entertainment going to understand that women should be paid fairly. 1/2 of her male counterpart is not appropriate.”
WOW this is so disappointing. When are companies like @e_entertainment going to understand that women should be paid fairly. 1/2 of her male counterpart is not appropriate. https://t.co/n2zrpTK8XE
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) December 20, 2017
The Zero Dark Thirty actress has been a longtime advocate of workplace equality. She even teamed up with Queen Latifah, Freida Pinto and more powerful women in Hollywood in early 2016 to launch the non-profit organization We Do It Together.
Us Weekly broke the news on Tuesday evening that Sadler, 43, left E! News over a pay disparity. “She found out Jason Kennedy makes significantly more than her, even though she does more work for the network, and she was outraged,” a source exclusively told Us. “The network was not interested in negotiating with her to get her up to his salary.”
The insider added, “She’s moving forward though and looking forward to the next chapter in her life. She doesn’t blame Jason, and Jason feels horrible about the discrepancy in salary. He loves Catt so much and was just as upset as she was to find out that she was being paid so much less. He thinks she will do amazing at whatever she does next and that E! made a big mistake.”
The TV personality confirmed the news in a blog post soon after. She claimed Kennedy, 36, “was making close to double” her salary “for the past several years.” She wrote, “Information is power. Or it should be. We are living in a new era. The gender pay gap is shrinking, although admittedly we have a long way to go. … Know your worth.”
In a statement to Us, E! said the network “compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender.”
