‘Home Improvement’ Ended After ABC Refused Equal Pay for Patricia Richardson

There’s unequal pay, and then there’s the Patricia Richardson/Tim Allen situation on the hit ‘90s sitcom Home Improvement. In the show’s eighth season, ABC offered Richardson a cool million bucks per episode to return. Pretty damn good — until you realize Allen would get two million, double Richardson’s offer. When she demanded equal pay, the show was as good as done.

The half-price salary didn’t jibe with what the show’s producers told Richardson from the start. “When I took the job, they said it wasn’t meant to be the Tim Allen show. It was meant to be our show,” she told The Los Angeles Times. “I’ve always said, I don’t want to play the thankless wife.”

As the show became a hit, Richardson looked out for her own interests, negotiating at least four Jill-centric episodes every season into her contract. She also bargained for a share of the show’s back-end profits, knowing that residuals dwindle over time. “I felt that I am going to end up being a huge part of whatever this show is,” she said. “It’s going to work because of me almost as much as because of Tim.”

She also asked for a producer credit, which she felt was deserved because she was key to guiding the show’s male-centric writers’ room on how to incorporate a real mom’s point-of-view. But producers denied her the credit, claiming it would set a precedent for the other actors. Of course, Allen got an executive producer title by the sixth season anyway.

Richardson says she and Allen were on the same page after the show’s eighth season, agreeing that Home Improvement had run its course. But when Allen was offered $2 million an episode to return, he quickly reversed course. Richardson, who wanted to spend more time with her kids, also agreed to come back — provided she got the same $2 million and executive producer credit that Allen enjoyed. “I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much. That was my way to say ‘no’ and was a little bit of a flip-off to Disney,” Richardson explained. “I’d been there all this time, and they never even paid me a third of what Tim was making, and I was working my ass off. I was a big reason why women were watching.”

That left Home Improvement with few choices. Given the show’s family dynamic, producers weren’t interested in killing off Richardson’s character. “Without her, it just didn’t make any sense,” reasoned Elliott Shoenman, one of the show’s producers. And Disney wasn’t about to give Richardson equal pay.  

So that was that — Home Improvement ended and not on the best of terms. “I was mad at Tim because he was leaving me alone being the only person saying no, which made me feel terrible and like the bad guy and he was upset with me for leaving,” Richardson said. Although the two reunited years later on Allen’s Last Man Standing, Richardson confirms that the two aren’t in close contact.

While Home Improvement was a huge ratings success, it isn’t as fondly remembered as other ‘90s hits like Friends and Seinfeld. Richardson’s theory? “Hollywood hates our show,” she argued. “I think it’s about Tim, and it’s about his politics.”