Fans bash ‘E! News’ as Catt Sadler quits, saying male co-host made twice her salary

Popular “E! News” host Catt Sadler quit her job after finding out co-host Jason Kennedy’s salary was reportedly twice as big as hers — for doing virtually the same job. Tuesday was her last day.

Now fans are calling for a boycott of the network.

When her contract came to an end this year and renegotiation began, the network refused to address the inequity, which had gone on for years, Sadler claimed Tuesday in a lengthy, emotional goodbye to entertainment TV on her personal website, The CattWalk.

She spoke of Kennedy as a brother and said she doesn’t hold him responsible for any of the mess. She wrote that she was in “shock” and felt insulted when she found out about their “massive disparity in pay.”

“Information is power. Or it should be,” she wrote. “We are living in a new era. The gender pay gap is shrinking, although admittedly we have a long way to go. And well, I learned this first hand. My team and I asked for what I know I deserve and were denied repeatedly.”

The only word so far from E! about Sadler’s claim has been a spokesperson’s statement and a “we’re going to miss you” tweet from the network.

“E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender,” the statement said. “We appreciate Catt Sadler’s many contributions at E! News and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.”

Reaction has come swiftly. People are tweeting their anger toward E!, some calling for a boycott of the network, home to “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “Total Divas.” People are also applauding Sadler for taking a stand.

Actress Jessica Chastain called the news “disappointing.”

According to People, Sadler, who is 43, has been at the network for nearly 12 years.

“Up until this point, I mean it really has been a dream job. Literally a dream job. I’m from Indiana, born and raised, and I had my sights set on E! and I’ve seen the world. I’ve had the best experiences,” Sadler wrote.

The single mother of two boys has taken on more responsibilities over the last year, including hosting the two-hour live daytime show “Daily Pop” while “also hosting E! News a majority of nights, so I inherited a lot more responsibility and more work hours and what not,” she wrote.

E! executives told her they wanted to extend her contract beyond this year, but, she wrote, she was also “informed and made aware that my male equivalent at the network who I started with the same year and have come up with doing essentially similar jobs, if not the same job, wasn’t just making a little bit more than me but was making double my salary and has been for several years.”

She wrote that she decided two weeks ago to quit.

“It’s almost insulting because you know you work really hard. I’m a single mom of two kids. I’ve given my all to this network. I’ve sacrificed time away from my family and I have dedicated my entire career to this network,” she wrote.

“And when you learn something like that, it makes you feel very small and underappreciated and undervalued. It’s heartbreaking.”

She spoke lovingly of Kennedy, who tweeted a goodbye to his friend and co-host.

“Jason Kennedy is one of my best friends in the whole wide world. He is like a brother to me. And in no way do I want this to reflect poorly on him,” Sadler wrote.

“He’s devastated, I think, and I think he believes that this is a great loss for the network. He does not want to see me go. Jason is a class act … It’s important that people don’t vilify him because he isn’t the problem — the system’s the problem, the structure’s the problem. And I really do mean that. Because that’s been a hard part of this whole thing because I love him dearly. And to be honest, he has been such a champion for me in every sense. But it’s not his decision.”

She suggested that staying would have been the easy thing to do. But if she had, “I don’t serve myself and I don’t serve every other female in the world,” she wrote.

She said her “next moves are not definitive” beyond going “off the grid” for the next week or so, but promised to return to TV.

This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Fans bash ‘E! News’ as Catt Sadler quits, saying male co-host made twice her salary."