Apple Paying Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston $1.25M Per Episode for Upcoming Morning Show Drama

Apple is paying Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston "upward of $1.25 million" a piece for each episode of their upcoming morning talk show drama series, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The show, which is based on Brian Stelter's non-fiction book "Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV" explores the drama-filled lives of the men and women who star on morning talk shows.

anistonwitherspoonshow
Witherspoon and Aniston's $1.25 million salary per episode includes fees for executive producing and points on the show's backend, as both are serving as executive producers on the series. Apple has already ordered 20 episodes of the show, split into two seasons.

Witherspoon's high salary on Apple's new television show drove up the price of her salary on the second season of HBO's "Little Big Lies," for which she will receive $1 million per episode.

One Hollywood agent told The Hollywood Reporter that if HBO matches Apple's price, "it inflates the whole ecosystem of TV actor salaries." HBO programming president Casey Bloys wasn't as concerned, though.

"It's not a shock to anybody that having a second season of an ongoing series is easier to have with those deals in place," HBO programming president Casey Bloys tells THR. "Every outlet has to make their own decisions about economics that make sense for them. I'm not going to shake my fist and say, 'Darn it, Apple!' If that's what made sense for them for that show, God bless."

In addition to the morning show drama, Apple is working on two other TV shows with Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company with Witherspoon serving a executive producer. One is "Are You Sleeping," a psychological thriller starring Octavia Spencer, while the other is an untitled comedy series starring Kristen Wiig.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Popular Stories

iphone 17 air iphone 16 pro

iPhone 17 Air USB-C Port May Have This Unusual Design Quirk

Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:59 am PDT by
Apple is preparing to launch a dramatically thinner iPhone this September, and if recent leaks are anything to go by, the so-called iPhone 17 Air could boast one of the most radical design shifts in recent years. iPhone 17 Air dummy model alongside iPhone 16 Pro (credit: AppleTrack) At just 5.5mm thick (excluding a slightly raised camera bump), the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air is expected to become ...
iphone 16 display

iPhone 17's Scratch Resistant Anti-Reflective Display Coating Canceled

Monday April 28, 2025 12:48 pm PDT by
Apple may have canceled the super scratch resistant anti-reflective display coating that it planned to use for the iPhone 17 Pro models, according to a source with reliable information that spoke to MacRumors. Last spring, Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested Apple was working on a new anti-reflective display layer that was more scratch resistant than the Ceramic Shield. We haven't heard...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iPhone 17 Air Pastel Feature

iPhone 17 Reaches Key Milestone Ahead of Mass Production

Monday April 28, 2025 8:44 am PDT by
Apple has completed Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) for at least one iPhone 17 model, according to a paywalled preview of an upcoming DigiTimes report. iPhone 17 Air mockup based on rumored design The EVT stage involves Apple testing iPhone 17 prototypes to ensure the hardware works as expected. There are still DVT (Design Validation Test) and PVT (Production Validation Test) stages to...
apple watch ultra yellow

What's Next for the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE 3

Friday April 25, 2025 2:44 pm PDT by
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, which launched on April 24, 2015. Yesterday, we recapped features rumored for the Apple Watch Series 11, but since 2015, the Apple Watch has also branched out into the Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch SE, so we thought we'd take a look at what's next for those product lines, too. 2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3 Apple didn't update the...
iPhone 17 Pro on Desk Feature

All iPhone 17 Models Again Rumored to Feature 12GB of RAM

Tuesday April 29, 2025 3:36 am PDT by
All upcoming iPhone 17 models will come equipped with 12GB of RAM to support Apple Intelligence, according to the Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station. The claim from the Chinese leaker, who has sources within Apple's supply chain, comes a few days after industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max will all be equipped with 12GB of RAM. ...
iOS App Store General Feature JoeBlue

Epic Games Wins Major Victory as Apple is Ordered to Comply With App Store Anti-Steering Injunction [Updated]

Wednesday April 30, 2025 4:01 pm PDT by
In a victory for Epic Games, Apple was today found to be in violation of a 2021 injunction that required it to allow developers to direct customers to third-party purchase options on the web using in-app links. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who has been handling the Apple vs. Epic Games dispute for the last five years, said that Apple is in "willful violation" of the injunction she issued to ...
iphone 16 pro ghost hand

iPhone 18 to Use High Performance Six-Channel Memory, Claims Leaker

Tuesday April 29, 2025 7:00 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone 18 lineup will introduce a major leap in memory performance, according to new information shared today by Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station. Apple is reportedly planning to equip the 2026 models with a high-capacity six-channel LPDDR5X memory configuration, significantly upping the memory bandwidth for future AI features and multitasking. Expanding the memory bandwidth...

Top Rated Comments

CrystalQuest76 Avatar
95 months ago
While female actors deserve the same pay as a male actor, no actor deserves that kind of money. Lets get a little perspective. Actors don't really do not work that many hours or contribute that much to the product to deserve such high salaries compared to other employees working on the project. There are many people involved in the creation of a show/movie. Most of them work year round, many of them more than 60 hours a week. the majority of the production time, the actors are standing or sitting around waiting for the sets and camera work to be prepared.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aaronhead14 Avatar
95 months ago
Apple is so out of touch with what people want.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
avanpelt Avatar
95 months ago
I wish Apple had just stuck to making best-in-class software that runs on great hardware.

I have yet to hear a single person say, "You have to check out this awesome show on Apple Music!" (which sounds like a stupid thing to say, to begin with.) People have told me I have to check out a cool new show on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video more times than I can count, but I've never heard anyone get excited about an Apple-exclusive show. Maybe this will be the show that turns the tide, but I'm not optimistic.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
filmantopia Avatar
95 months ago
Good. These women deserve every cent any male actor would make.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ssmed Avatar
95 months ago
Whilst that is probably the going rate for such things and they are both good actors, my message to Apple is 'please return to being a technology firm with vision and much better quality control. It's good to specialise. Really!'
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DEMinSoCAL Avatar
95 months ago
Good. These women deserve every cent any male actor would make.
What does your statement have to do with the article apart from you chiming in on an unrelated current event? The article says nothing about any male actors. If there are some, how do you know they are being paid the same?

Personally, I don't think it anyone's business how much someone makes, but when they feel they have to make it public, people feel the need to judge. Considering it takes me 10 years to make as much money as each of them will make in a week, I can't say it's deserving. But then neither are sports salaries--9 figure salary for a pitcher on a baseball team?
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)