Key Points
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Tiffani Thiessen said she received low pay for her turn as Kelly onSaved by the Bell.
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Her financial picture improved, though, when she joined the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210, in 1994.
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Thiessen’s former costar Mark-Paul Gosselaar has also commented on what the teen stars were paid on the ’90s show.
Saved by the Bell was big for Tiffani Thiessen‘s career, but not for her bank account.
The actress, who played Homecoming Queen Kelly Kapowski on multiple seasons of the teen comedy, confirmed in a recent interview with SiriusXM’s Page Six Radio that she and her castmates “got nothing,” not even an early peek at episodes.
She added, “We made nothing and we just did our job.”
The sitcom starred Thiessen alongside Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez, Lark Voorhies, Dennis Haskins, and the late Dustin Diamond between 1989 and 1992.
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“When we went primetime for one season, we got a little bit more,” the actress said. “But yeah, I didn’t start making real money until I went to 90210.”
Thiessen went on to portray bad girl Valerie Malone on teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 between its fifth and ninth seasons. By the time she joined the cast of the popular series, star Shannen Doherty was out, but the rest of the cast, which included Jason Priestley, Luke Perry, Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Brian Austin Green, and more, was intact.
In fact, Thiessen and Berkley missed some ofSaved by the Bell’s later episodes — without explanation to viewers — because producers had already filmed a graduation, which was ostensibly the end of the show. Thiessen was already off to create problems for Priestley’s Brandon Walsh and his friends.
But as for the money coming in because of her sitcom? Well, Thiessen said that she can relate to those posts actors make about receiving minuscule checks for residuals.
“That’s exactly right,” Thiessen said. “There’s actually a funny place, I don’t even know if it’s still open, called Residuals in L.A., where actors could come in and take their 38 cent check and buy a drink with it.”
She said she doesn’t think she receives residuals for playing Kelly these days.
“I think it’s dried out now,” said Thiessen, whose new show is supernatural teen drama Coven Academy. “It costs more to print the check.”
Thiessen isn’t the only one who’s spoken up about the low salaries the teen acts were given in the ’90s.
In January 2019, Gosselaar explained on Watch What Happens Livethat the Saved by the Bell cast “made really bad deals.”
He added, “Poor deals, back then. It is what it is. You move on, you learn. Great experience.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
