Holland Taylor says Two and a Half Men never paid her what her work on the sitcom was worth. The actress spent six years on the CBS comedy as Evelyn Harper, mother to Charlie Harper and Alan Harper, played by Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. Applause and awards attention came easily. Now the actress is explaining how that happened, and why a contract stopped sounding appealing. The backstory is surprisingly candid.

While Evelyn Harper handled her two sons on screen, Taylor faced a tougher problem off screen, and the math never added up in her favor.

Holland Taylor says her paycheck on Two and a Half Men never kept up with her résumé. Her salary matched what she had earned on a series roughly eight years earlier. The sitcom ran for 12 seasons, from 2003 to 2015, which made a pay rate that never moved even harder to explain.

“They never paid me very well on that show," Taylor discussed her experience on the sitcom during a recent appearance on the Alchemy with Anthony Mason podcast.

She added, “And I got four Emmy nominations, and they never gave me a raise.” Raises usually follow recognition she said.

Taylor revealed on the Alchemy with Anthony Mason podcast that she declined to renew her contract after season six. She then returned only as an occasional guest star and turned down dates that did not suit her. Producers were astonished and assumed she was bargaining, yet they said they could not afford to pay her more. Taylor replied that even an offer worth a whole building would not change her mind.

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While Holland Taylor walked away from low pay on one CBS sitcom, another CBS actress drew a line of her own.

Kat Dennings refused to film a 2 Broke Girls scene in which Max and Caroline ran around their apartment set wearing only b***. Dennings found the idea excessive rather than funny and confronted showrunner Michael Patrick King before the scene ever rolled. Money entered the conversation too, since she said on TikTok that the show was not paying her enough, although she doubted anyone could.

The story surfaced in a nostalgic video marking the sitcom’s fifteenth anniversary, a moment when fans expected a simple blooper reel. Dennings summed up the experience with the moral that no one should underestimate themselves. Around the same time, she joked on Instagram that the cast left richer but hardly unscathed. Between a refused scene on 2 Broke Girls and a raise that never arrived on Two and a Half Men, both actresses proved that a paycheck should match the work.

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What are your thoughts on Holland Taylor and Kat Dennings speaking up about pay? Let us know in the comments.