Debra Messing Calls Out E! For Paying Its Female Co-Hosts Less Live On E!’s Golden Globes Coverage

Systematic sexual harassment and assault throughout the entertainment industry is the heavy subtext of the 75th Golden Globes. In an effort to keep the conversation and change going, attendees have coordinated to wear black in addition to some bringing activists as their dates.

Debra Messing is taking another approach, and it’s just as appropriately blunt. Live on E!’s red carpet coverage, Messing called out E!’s unequal pay between their male and female co-hosts while explaining the Time’s Up movement: “Time is up. We want diversity, we want intersectional gender parity, we want equal pay,” she said.


“You know, I was so shocked to hear that E! doesn’t believe in paying their female co-hosts the same as their male co-hosts,” Messing said live on E!. “I miss Catt Sadler and we I stand with her. That’s something that can change tomorrow. We want people to start having this conversation that women are just as valuable as men.”

Catt Sadler quit her position at E! last December after learning that E! was paying her co-host Jason Kennedy “close to double [her] salary for the past several years.”

Golden Globes host Seth Meyers said that he plans on staying away from any expected political jokes, instead focusing the attention on the burgeoning Time’s Up and #MeToo movement, helmed by Tarana Burke.

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