Melanie Lynskey Corrects Rumors About Her Sitcom Pay

Melanie Lynskey has pushed back on claims that she earned hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode on Two and a Half Men. In a social media comment, she said she appeared in 63 of the sitcom’s 262 episodes and that her pay was about one-tenth of the amount being circulated online.

Lynskey said her starting salary was $20,000 per episode, with what she believed was a 5% increase each season. More than half of her appearances were in the first two seasons, she said, while her largest paycheck was about $43,000 for an episode in the final season. She added that agents’ and managers’ fees, along with taxes, reduced her take-home pay by roughly half.

The actor said the work helped cover her mortgage and bills and gave her room to pursue independent films. She was grateful for the role, she said, but objected to the idea that it had made her millions. Lynskey played Rose, the neighbor of Charlie Harper, played by Charlie Sheen.

Her comments followed Holland Taylor’s account of her own pay on the series. Taylor said she received no raise despite four Emmy nominations for playing Evelyn Harper, and that Jon Cryer’s salary increased substantially when his contract was renewed. Two and a Half Men ran for 12 seasons on CBS, from 2003 to 2015.