‘Criminal Minds’: Paget Brewster Reveals Abysmal Residual Payments Amid Hollywood Strikes

Paget Brewster is revealing the streaming residuals that she and her Criminal Minds co-stars have been getting, and it’s not a lot. Amid the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, more and more actors have been taking to the picket lines and/or social media to speak out about their own experiences with not getting paid a lot and showing their support for the union. Brewster is the latest to go on the record about the abysmal residuals she’s gotten paid when Criminal Minds, and not to mention the worldwide distribution. In response to a fan on Twitter, who expressed how much they missed the behind-the-scenes content from the ladies of the long-running procedural, Brewster got real about why they’re currently striking.

“We will hot tub wine machine again,” Brewster shared. “We are friends forever. But being paid pennies by Netflix and $990 a year TOTAL for all 70+ Foreign Countries hurts us. Some of us lost our health insurance from no residuals. We had to strike. And I pray the AMTPT won’t starve us all out.”

Criminal Minds ran for 15 seasons during its original run and has since remained a beloved series on CBS. The show, which left Netflix ahead of its Paramount+ revival debut last year, was consistently one of the most popular shows on the streamer. Knowing that even despite how well it was doing, the cast still didn’t earn much out of it is disappointing. With the strike, though, Brewster and her fellow actors can now open up about what it’s really like and hopefully get more support so people see that it’s not always sunshine and rainbows for actors.

This isn’t the first time Netflix has been called out for poor residuals. Gilmore Girls alum Sean Gunn admitted that the streamer has given them nothing in terms of residuals or revenue, despite the WB/CW drama also being one of the most popular shows on the platform. Meanwhile, Nickelodeon alums Devon Werkheiser and Giovannie Samuels also spoke out about receiving nothing on streaming for their shows. They are not the only ones, unfortunately, and it’s even happening to those who have had originals on streamers, which only adds more fuel to the fire.

Hopefully, the studios and the unions come to an agreement soon because if not for the writers and the actors, shows wouldn’t even exist. There is no end in sight for either strike, so for now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.