CBS
"The Big Bang Theory"
- "The Big Bang Theory" ends its 12-season run on Thursday. The actors were some of the highest-paid on television.
- How do the "Big Bang Theory" salaries stack up against those of some of the other highest-paid actors on television?
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"The Big Bang Theory" ends its record-breaking 12-season run on Thursday, and the actors were some of the highest paid on television.
Actor Jim Parsons made headlines last summer for walking away from a reported two-year $50 million paycheck for two more seasons of the sitcom. That included $1 million an episode plus profits. CBS then announced the show would end with its 12th season, which premiered in September.
READ MORE: The 2 most popular TV shows of 2018 were both canceled: 'The Big Bang Theory' and 'Roseanne'
In 2017, Variety reported that the show's five original cast members - Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Kunal Nayyar and Simon Helberg - agreed to take $100,000 pay cuts in order to help costars Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bialik earn more. The two were making $200,000 an episode compared to the $1 million the original five were making.
For the final season, Rauch and Bialik received raises, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and made at least $425,000 an episode.
Parsons, Galecki, Nayyar, and Helberg were the top four biggest earners on Forbes' list of the highest-paid TV actors of 2018. Parsons topped the list with $26.5 million in pretax from June 1, 2017 to June 1, 2018. Cuoco was Forbes' second-highest-paid TV actress of 2018 with $24.5 million in the same time period.
But there are other TV stars whose salaries are on par with the "Big Bang Theory" actors, including Norman Reedus, who is making $1 million an episode for "The Walking Dead" after his costar Andrew Lincoln departed the show.
Below are some of TV's highest-paid actors and how much they make per episode: