Emmerdale star exposes ITV salary and its not as much as you think

Former soap star Kelli Hollis lifted the lid on how much she and her co-stars earned during her four-year tenure on ITV's long-running series Emmerdale. The actress who played Ali Spencer and made her first appearance on screens in 2011 took to social media during a fan Q&A to reveal how much the cast gets paid per episode.

“You get an episode fee, you’re guaranteed so many episodes a year … saying roughly 500 an episode and you were contracted to do 90 that’s £45K. Hollis acknowledged: “It’s obviously a good wage, but it's not like rich rich, if you think famous actors would be earning. “Now that’s sort of middle of the road, when I was in Emmerdale, to my knowledge, one of the highest paid actors was on £1,000 an episode.”

After revealing that everyone would “get paid different,” the actress continued: “It would only be 45 and then you would get a buyout which is pretty much the same as your wage, so tops that up to 90.”

Hollis then exposed the mandatory deductions, the Emmerdale stars would be forced to pay from their wages, including the “agent’s commission, which is usually 12.5 per cent.

“And because you’re self-employed, you have to put 40% away for tax. Obviously, there’s a lot of tax rebates and things you can claim for as an actor, but there is a cap on a lot of those things.”

Addressing the common misconceptions, the Ali Spencer star stated: “People think you can claim all your clothes, anything you buy. That’s not the case.

“If we’re talking people like Ken Barlow, the’re on very old school ITV contracts that can’t be broken, they are airtight.”

She added: “It’s very, very different now and to my knowledge, you’re not even guaranteed the 90 episode a year now.”

Reflecting on her departure, Hollis stated: “When I was leaving Emmerdale, it was almost like they were putting people on pay-as-you-go contracts, three-month contracts, that’s not going to work for a lot of actors.”

This shocked many Emmerdale fans as they took to the comments in disbelief at the surprisingly low wages, as one wrote: “Don't get me wrong, its not a bad wage, but its a lot less than I thought.”

A second added: “That's crazy because American US soap actors get 100k to 500k why don't you guys get that much.”

“I’m so shocked, I thought actors on soaps would have been on so much more.. I’m not gonna bother then,” said another.

As a fourth remarked: “Honestly I’m shocked you weren’t paid much much more it’s not like these channels don’t rake it in with advertising etc. and then with licence fee etc.”