Kelsey Grammer Is Being Paid Way More for New ‘Frasier’ Than the One People Actually Liked

While Money Plane likely didn’t cut any huge checks to its cast, and low-budget Christmas movies co-starring Billy Ray Cyrus clearly aren’t paying for any luxury yachts, Kelsey Grammer is making a staggering amount of money off of the new Frasier, aka the Frasier show people don’t like as much. 

This news is coming from Closer Weekly, the same publication that recently published an in-depth investigation into whether or not Chevy Chase is still an asshole. According to the outlet, Grammer is pulling in a whopping $2 million per episode. Which is a lot of money to spend on a sitcom that most people only half-watch while doing the dishes and/or trying to drown out the sound of their neighbors having sex.

Closer Weekly spoke to an anonymous inside source who claimed that Grammer “just turned his back on both his original Frasier cast and the many surviving actors from Cheers, building this version of the show with a lot of new faces and co-stars who frankly charge a lot less for their services than TV legends like Ted Danson or David Hyde Pierce.”

The nameless “insider” went on to state that “you’re never going to see Woody Harrelson guest star on this version of Frasier like he did in the original series because it’s not in the budget and they’re watching every penny on this show.”

For the record, Pierce has said that he turned down the Frasier reboot, not because Grammer was hogging all the show’s funds, but because he has other career interests and “never really wanted to go back.”

The source then clarified that “nobody who is actually working on this revival has a problem” with Grammer’s salary because he’s a “hard worker and shows up with a smile on his face and ready to make a fool of himself to get the laugh.” Which kind of makes it sound like the anonymous source might just be Grammer’s publicist.

If the revelation of Grammer’s salary is accurate, it’s pretty shocking for a few reasons. For starters, that would mean that Grammer is now making considerably more for the new Frasier than he did for the old one. Grammar earned $1.6 million per episode during the final two seasons of the original series. Obviously that was a number of years ago now, but it does seem pretty wild that Grammer is being paid $400,000 more to star in the version of Frasier that isn’t widely beloved and critically acclaimed. 

Also, this means that Grammer is now making the highest tier of television salary. It’s been reported that the highest paid actors on TV right now include John Krasinski for Jack Ryan and Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, who both make $2 million per episode for The Morning Show.

At least Frasier 2.0 wasn’t created purely to sell iPhones and hype the CIA.