Nina Dobrev says she left The Vampire Diaries because she was paid less than co-stars

[TMC]

...Paul Wesley and Somerhalder

https://www.usmagazine.com/entertain...-book-reveals/

In Samantha Highfill's I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, released today, Dobrev tells how she Candice King and Kat Graham were the “lowest-paid series regulars” for the show’s first two seasons, according to Us Weekly. "It was a bit of a tricky situation because my contract only said to play Elena, but I was playing multiple characters, which doubled my work-load,” Dobrev explained, referring to her character’s doppelgänger, Katherine Pierce. “I had to be on set for double the amount of time, I had to memorize double the amount of lines. Highfill wrote that “Dobrev was successful in getting more money” but she was never paid the same as Wesley and Somerhalder. The studio allegedly told writers to stop putting Katherine in scenes because they “had to pay” Dobrev for both roles. The show’s co-creator and showrunner Julie Plec recalled things getting “really heated” at the time. “It basically got phoned down back to us writers that we were not allowed to write Katherine in at all ever,” Plec said. “Which of course was not something that I felt was right or fair.”