Simone Biles Breaks Down $23,000 Price Tag for Red Carpet Glam

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Simone Biles is flipping out over the price tag of her recent red carpet event.

The Olympic gymnast was shocked by the $23,000 price tag for a recent event, explaining that it covered the cost of a stylist, as well as hair and makeup services.

“I’m just wondering if this is typical,” Simone asked in a TikTok on April 27th. “I know going out costs a lot now, but is it really this expensive?”

I’ve been following Simone’s story, and it’s heartbreaking to see her going through this. She hasn’t said exactly what triggered it, but she revealed she’s really been struggling ever since, saying she’s felt like she’s been spiraling. She’s now asking other celebrities to be open about their own experiences, hoping it will shed some light on what’s happening and maybe help others too. It’s brave of her to speak out and ask for support.

Honestly, I’m just completely baffled! This guy, he’s 29, and he was just asking if this is… normal? Like, yeah, I get it, everything costs more now, inflation and all that. But if this is what we’re stuck with, forget it! Seriously, I’m with him – you won’t catch me at another event if this is the new reality. He said he’s just gonna stay home where it’s free, and I totally feel that! It’s just… ridiculous, you know?

I often see many of you at these events, and I doubt you’re all paying these high prices every time.

The seven-time gold medalist, last seen on the red carpet at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid on April 20th, 2026, explained that she was making the video to seek advice from others who had similar experiences.

“My intention for this video isn’t so that you guys can go bash people,” she clarified. “There’s no ill intent. I just need to know if this is normal. That’s really it, ‘cause if it is I’m staying inside.”

Simone explained in her social media post that she plans to stay home for the near future. She also mentioned being frustrated with companies that significantly raise prices simply because of someone’s public profile, though thankfully that wasn’t the case this time, but it has happened to her before.

I don’t mean to criticize anyone,” she said. “I genuinely think all my coworkers, past and present, are wonderful. I’m just wondering if what happened is typical.

Simone wasn’t the only one feeling this way. Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin shared a similar sentiment, saying, “I’ve been thinking the same thing!”

Simone Biles is known for being open with her fans, and recently shared she’d had three cosmetic procedures. These included surgery on her eyelids, a breast augmentation, and ear reshaping.

She told People magazine in November that she’s always strived to be open, honest, and someone people can connect with. While winning Olympic medals isn’t something everyone can relate to, she believes that feelings, conversations, struggles, and open communication are universal. That’s why she chose to share her own experiences.

Transparency was also a top priority for Simone because so many young women look up to her.

She explained that seeing so many seemingly perfect people on social media can be discouraging. That’s why she makes an effort to be genuine and open about her own life, because social media often presents an unrealistic picture.

The star athlete added, “As long as you love yourself, that’s really all that matters.”

Simone isn’t the only celebrity to talk openly about finances. Here are some other stars who have shared details about how much they earn…

According to Joe Giudice, he and his ex-wife Teresa Giudice didn’t make much money during the first season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. He said on his daughter Gia’s Casual Chaos podcast in August 2025 that they were paid around $25,000, which he considered a very small amount, but they accepted it.

Creating the first season of the show wasn’t inexpensive. The father of four recalled, “I remember that big party we threw in my living room cost a lot. I’d estimate the show cost me around $150,000 that first year.”

Although the winner of Dancing With the Stars doesn’t receive a cash prize, everyone who reaches the finale gets paid, according to season 33 champion Jenna Johnson. She also mentioned that finalists receive a bonus on top of their regular pay. She won the season with her partner, Joey Graziadei.

As a lifestyle expert, people are always curious about what really happens behind the scenes on shows like these! Let’s talk money. Winning isn’t about a huge payout – it’s more about the bragging rights and a fun trophy. And while dancers start earning around $1,200 to $1,600 per episode – potentially up to $100,000 for the whole season, though that’s unconfirmed – the celebrities come in at a solid $125,000 just to start! The further they go in the competition, the more they earn, with semifinalists and finalists potentially adding another $50,000 to their paychecks. It’s a great incentive to keep dancing!

Jennifer Lawrence, an Academy Award winner, earned $25 million for her role in Adam McKay’s comedy film Don’t Look Up. Her co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, who also has an Oscar, received $30 million for the same movie.

Jennifer Lawrence acknowledged that Leonardo DiCaprio earns more at the box office than she does. While she’s happy with her own salary, she told Vanity Fair in December 2020/January 2021 that she’s noticed a pattern – and many other women likely have too – where asking about equal pay is awkward. And when discrepancies are pointed out, explanations are often vague, with people claiming it’s not about gender without offering a clear alternative reason.

Jennifer Lawrence’s positive outlook on the issue came after a difficult struggle. When the 2014 Sony email leak revealed she was paid less than her male co-stars in the 2013 film American Hustle, it sparked a widespread discussion about unequal pay for women in Hollywood.

In a 2017 interview with Channel 4 News, Lawrence explained she wasn’t worried about her income. ‘I’m lucky to have the job I do,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t about the money – getting ‘only’ millions for a film is not what bothered me. I was upset by the broader issues of unfairness and inequality.’

Compared to Leonardo DiCaprio’s earnings, Jonah Hill received a relatively small $60,000 for his work in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street – before taxes and commissions. This is significantly less than the $10 million earned by the lead actor.

Hill remembered being offered very little money on The Howard Stern Show in 2014. However, he was eager to appear in a film directed by Martin Scorsese, so he quickly agreed to the deal, worried they might reconsider.

Hill, a two-time Best Supporting Actor nominee known for playing a nervous, drug-using stockbroker, said he’d be willing to sacrifice everything to work with director Martin Scorsese. He explained that while films like 22 Jump Street help pay the bills, true fulfillment comes from pursuing passion projects. He’d happily do it all over again, emphasizing that meaningful work isn’t about the money – it’s about doing something you believe in.

Oprah Winfrey happily accepted only a little bit of green to star in 1985’s The Color Purple.

In a 2023 interview with Essence, the media billionaire said that despite only being paid $35,000 for the film, it was the most valuable $35,000 they ever made. They explained that the experience was transformative and taught them a great deal.

Jennifer Lopez made history when she played the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla in the 1997 movie Selena. She was the first Latina actress to be paid $1 million for a film role.

Looking back on her first big film, Lopez told Variety in 2019 that she was very young and didn’t fully understand what was happening. She was thrilled they offered her a million dollars and believes everyone involved was trying to prove a point.

This success allowed her to earn hundreds of millions of dollars, and sometimes she doesn’t even have to contribute financially to see a return.

In a 2019 interview with GQ, Jennifer Lopez explained that she pursues projects out of passion, not just for financial gain. She revealed she wasn’t highly paid for Hustlers, and even self-funded it, because she believes in investing in herself and following her creative instincts – just like with her song Jenny From the Block.

Adrien Brody wasn’t motivated by money when he took the role in The Brutalist. He chose to play a Hungarian architect struggling with his work in post-World War II America, and his performance earned him a second Best Actor Oscar, despite a salary of just $250,000.

Brody told Variety he’s ready for a big studio film, joking that he’s put all his resources into renovating a unique property – a barn he describes as castle-like – in upstate New York.

You know, I get asked all the time about how young comedians manage their money when they first start out. Pete Davidson actually summed it up perfectly when talking about his early days on Saturday Night Live. He said when he was 20, back in 2014, he was making around three thousand dollars per episode – which, let’s be real, barely covered dinner! It really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

Okay, so I’ve been researching everything about the early days of SNL, and it’s amazing! Apparently, when the show first started in 1975, the original cast – John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and Chevy Chase – they all made the same amount per episode: $750! I looked it up, and that’s about $3,300 today, if you adjust for inflation. Actually, updating it to this year, 2025, it’s closer to $4,428! It’s just incredible to think about how it all started with those legends earning that amount.

Kenan Thompson earns significantly more than $3,000 per episode of SNL these days, especially since he’s currently in his 22nd season. However, he began his career like everyone else, starting from the beginning.

In Demi Lovato’s 2024 documentary, Child Star, a former cast member of All That shared that their first paycheck was $800. They joked that, being 12 at the time, it felt like a fortune – almost a million dollars.

It turns out Gilmore Girls’ status as a beloved rewatchable classic is literally priceless.

Lauren Graham, best known for playing Lorelai Gilmore for seven seasons and then returning for the 2016 revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, recently shared that she doesn’t receive any ongoing payments (residuals) from Netflix. She told Jimmy Kimmel in March 2025 that she’s instead been ‘paid in love and appreciation.’

During the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, actress Tommy Dorfman revealed details about her pay for the show 13 Reasons Why. The strike, along with the WGA strike, was partly caused by streaming services like Netflix not offering extra pay to actors and crew even after a show became successful.

Dorfman revealed on Threads on July 24th that she earned $29,953.24 for the first season of 13 Reasons Why before her agency, manager (combined 20%), and taxes took their share. She worked on 8 episodes over six months, doing all the promotion and appearing in key promotional artwork. She also shared that she flew back and forth between New York City and San Francisco to film each episode, often working for days without pay, and barely qualified for health insurance.

Dorfman also noted that the show’s first season reached 476 million viewing hours within its first 28 days, which is why they decided to go on strike.

Dax Shepard recently shared with Lauren Graham, his former co-star on the show Parenthood, that he was one of the lowest-paid actors during the show’s six-season run on NBC. He didn’t mention specific salaries or co-stars’ names.

But, the Armchair Expert host stressed that he did not mind.

Before becoming a parent, I always made it a priority to find out how much my coworkers were earning. I’d usually ask them directly, or if that wasn’t possible, I’d find out through my agent.

Okay, so get this – he actively avoided finding out anything about the actors on Parenthood beforehand, which was brilliant! It meant he could just lose himself in the show, even when he started to figure out who the bigger stars were and how much everyone was probably making. Honestly, it was the smartest thing he could have done to fully enjoy it!

In 2005, George Clooney told the Los Angeles Times that he and Grant Heslov each only made one dollar from the film Good Night, and Good Luck. Clooney explained that to get the movie made, he had to cash his directing check and forgo his acting salary, with Heslov doing the same.

George Clooney’s passion project, a play about CBS News journalist Edward R. Murrow and his courageous reporting in the 1950s, proved to be a success. Clooney made his Broadway debut playing Murrow, finishing a months-long run in June 2025. The play earned a record-breaking $3.3 million during previews before its official opening on April 3rd, demonstrating it was a significant financial hit.

Christian Bale revealed in a 2022 interview with GQ that he was paid very little for his role as Patrick Bateman in the 2000 film American Psycho. He explained that the production didn’t initially want him, and it was only due to director Mary Harron that he was cast, resulting in him being paid the lowest amount legally possible.

Oh my god, it’s just… heartbreaking! Bale actually told me he was once earning less than the makeup artists on set! He said he was sitting in the trailer and they were literally laughing because his paycheck was smaller than theirs! Can you believe it? It just proves how dedicated he is, putting the work above everything, even a decent salary! It’s amazing and awful all at once, honestly.

Although his uncle was Rico, Jon Heder revealed in 2010 that he originally earned just $1,000 for his role in Napoleon Dynamite.

Once the unexpectedly successful comedy took off, he successfully asked for a share of the earnings. He told the New Zealand Herald that the offer was increased, saying, “They went a little bit higher.”

Despite a successful career with acclaimed films like Amistad and Blood Diamond, Djimon Hounsou feels he isn’t paid enough for his work in Hollywood.

The Beninese actor told CNN’s Larry Madowo in January 2025 that despite working in the film industry for over twenty years – and even with two Oscar nominations and appearances in many successful blockbusters – he continues to struggle financially.

In her 2024 memoir, Rebel Rising, Rebel Wilson revealed that she earned just $3,500 for her work on Bridesmaids. However, she had to use that entire amount to pay her Screen Actors Guild initiation fees, meaning she effectively received no payment for the film.

Still, she wrote, the experience was “everything!”

I’ve been a huge fan of Rebel Wilson for years, and it’s amazing to see how far she’s come! She started with a standard payment of around $65,000 for the first Pitch Perfect movie, but by Pitch Perfect 3, she was earning a phenomenal $10 million! She recently shared that she made a total of $20 million from Pitch Perfect 3, Isn’t It Romantic, and The Hustle. Of course, a big chunk went to taxes – almost half! – plus she paid her agents, lawyer, publicist, business manager, and assistant. But even after all that, she said she still walked away with a truly incredible amount of money – a real fortune, as she put it!

In late 2017, Ellen Pompeo successfully negotiated a new contract for her role on Grey’s Anatomy. The deal paid her $575,000 per episode, included a substantial signing bonus, and gave her a stake in the show’s profits estimated to be worth between $6 and $7 million.

In a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 48-year-old Pompeo explained that she’s reached a point in her career where she confidently asks for fair compensation. She attributes this to gaining experience with age. While she acknowledges the industry may not see her as the most ‘trendy’ actress due to playing the same character for 14 years, she argues that maintaining quality over such a long period is a real accomplishment. She pointed out that it’s easy to be good in a show’s first couple of seasons, but staying strong after fourteen years requires genuine skill.

Looking back, it always bothered me that I earned less than Patrick Dempsey on Grey’s Anatomy, even though the show was literally built around my character. But honestly, I never resented him for it. It just was the situation, and I’ve come to terms with that.

In a March 2025 episode of her podcast, Call Her Daddy, she explained that because the show was named after her, she felt she deserved equal recognition. She wasn’t upset about someone else’s success, but rather that her contributions weren’t valued as highly, and she believed that would always be the case.

Jamie Lee Curtis remembers earning $2,000 per week, totaling $8,000, for her first movie, the 1978 film Halloween. As she explained to Rotten Tomatoes in 2018, practically no one involved with the film received significant payment.

Although the actress playing Laurie Strode made a good amount of money, director John Carpenter’s friend, Nick Castle, felt like he was doing very well earning $25 a day to share the role of Michael Myers. (Actually, it’s Anthony Moran whose face you briefly see when the killer’s mask comes off, and editor Tommy Lee Wallace also appeared on screen as Michael.)

Oh my gosh, it was HUGE back then! Andrew Castle, who actually went to film school with John Carpenter at USC, told Vanity Fair a while ago, and I was SO excited to read it. He said what really drew him to the movie wasn’t even acting, it was just being on set. He wanted to see how everything worked, how Carpenter directed, and just… figure it all out. He fully expected to be a freebie, just hanging around and learning. But get this – they paid him $25 a day! All he had to do was wear a rubber mask! Can you believe it? It’s just… amazing to think he was there, witnessing it all.

Taraji P. Henson received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. However, she was still frustrated years later that she only earned $150,000 for the movie, despite initially requesting $500,000.

In a 2021 interview on the Ladies First With Laura Brown podcast, producer Dede Henson explained that Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett each commanded around $20 million for their roles in the film, which was a significant amount at the time. Henson added that their high salaries were justified – they deserved to be well-compensated.

She explained that she was also bringing value to the role and believed her salary request was reasonable, considering how much the film would likely earn from ticket sales. She wouldn’t have accepted less. Henson said she was very disappointed when they initially offered her only $100,000. Ultimately, she ended up with $150,000, but she admitted it was difficult to accept such a lower amount than she’d hoped for.

Henson understands people might think $150,000 is a large sum of money, and she wants to make it clear she isn’t ungrateful. However, after taxes and paying her team, the actual amount she receives is significantly less. She estimates that after the government takes its 50% share, she’s left with $75,000. Then, after paying her team 30% of the original amount, she might only have around $40,000 remaining.

Cate Blanchett has earned a substantial income throughout her career, but her role as the elf Galadriel in the hugely successful The Lord of the Rings films – which made $2.9 billion worldwide – wasn’t her sole source of wealth.

When Andy Cohen suggested on Watch What Happens Live in August 2024 that The Lord of the Rings was her most lucrative role, she jokingly replied, “No way!” She explained that the cast didn’t actually earn much money on the film – she essentially only received free food and was allowed to keep her prosthetic ears.

Orlando Bloom, known for his role as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, revealed in a 2023 interview on The Howard Stern Show that he earned only $175,000 for all three films – a surprisingly small amount.

Hopefully he also got to keep his ears.

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2026-04-28 23:20