'Big Bang' Co-Star Simon Helberg Gets Big Salary Bump

[Brian Damage]

Simon Helberg will have a lot more money to buy those bright-colored turtlenecks. The Big Bang Theory co-star has just landed a big raise from the series' producer Warner Bros. TV. I hear Helberg's new salary is close to $125,000 an episode, up from the roughly $40,000 he is currently making. Helberg and fellow co-star Kunal Nayyar entered salary re-negotiations shortly after series' leading trio, Johnny Galecki, Kaley Cuoco, and Jim Parsons finished theirs in September, netting identical salary increases from about $60,000 last season to $250,000 in Season 5, $300,000 in Season 6 and 350,000 in Season 7, in addition to a piece of the CBS series' backend. With Helberg set, Nayyar remains the only Big Bang cast member who has not reached an agreement with Warner Bros. for a new higher salary. I hear such deal is expected and, just like with Parsons, who held out for more money before accepting the terms of the studio's final offer that Galecki and Cuoco had agreed on, if he doesn't, his re-negotiations may be tabled until the summer. That would leave Nayyar at the current salary of about $25,000 per episode. It is not clear if Warner Bros. offered Helberg and Nayyar "favored nations"-type deals with equal financial terms the way it did with Galecki, Cuoco and Parsons.

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