Did A Lack Of Saved By The Bell Royalties Ruin Mark-Paul Gosselaar's Net Worth?

Highlights

• The cast of Saved by the Bell didn't receive royalty payments despite the show's immense popularity and reruns.
• Residual payments are important to actors and can generate millions of dollars.
• Mark-Paul Gosselaar admitted that the cast made poor deals.

Long before shows like Stranger Things were taking the world by storm, Saved by the Bell became a sensation. Immensely popular despite some controversial episodes, Saved by the Bell had such a lasting legacy that Jimmy Fallon put together a celebrated reunion.

Unfortunately for the stars of Saved by the Bell, however, they certainly weren't TV stars that made $1 million per episode. Instead, the stars of Saved by the Bell don't even get the royalty payments that most successful TV stars receive.

How Much Does The Cast Of Saved By The Bell Make In Royalties?

When actors work on TV shows or movies, they get paid a lump sum at first. After that, the actor typically will continue to get royalty payments, known as residuals. How much actors get in residuals depend on factors like reruns and home video sales, among other things.

These residual payments make up a portion of each professional actor's annual salary. For that reason, residual payments are so important to actors that SAG-AFTRA has websites outlining how they work.

Another huge factor in how rewarding residual payments are for an actor is the contracts they sign. That fact has allowed many major TV stars to bring in millions of dollars annually in completely passive income.

According to reports, Ray Romano gets $18 million annually in residual payments from Everybody Loves Raymond. It has also been reported that Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki, and Kaley Cuoco all make $10 million each from annual residual payments.

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While those figures are amazing, they pale in comparison to Jerry Seinfeld's residual payments from Seinfeld. According to Yahoo! Finance, Jerry Seinfeld gets $400 million per syndication cycle from Seinfeld. A syndication cycle typically is six consecutive showings of a series within three to five years.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are some infamous examples of actor contracts that were so bad that the performers got no residuals. Probably the most talked about actors who fall into that category are the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers actors.

After Mighty Morphin Power Rangers came out and was a huge hit, the actors should have cashed in. However, according to reports, the stars of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers barely got a salary in the first place. On top of that, they reportedly get absolutely no money from residuals or merchandise.

In 2019, Mark-Paul Gosselaar appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. As anyone familiar with that show will likely already know, there is something special about Cohen as an interviewer. After all, celebrities tend to tell Cohen facts about their lives that they rarely share otherwise.

When Gosselaar appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, he was no different. Gosselaar revealed something that most stars try to keep close to their chest, how much they get paid for their work.

During Gosselaar's Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen appearance, a caller asked him about Saved by the Bell. After Gosselaar spoke about regretting an episode of Saved by the Bell, Cohen asked him a more personal question.

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While talking about how popular Saved by the Bell reruns are, Cohen brought up the financial side of things. "Given the amount that that show has been rerun and repurposed and all that, did you guys, did the actors... Do you get any kind of residuals? Who is making money of the show is what I want to know."

Without missing a beat, Gosselaar's first response to Cohen was to say, "We're not" in reference to Saved by the Bell's cast. Gosselaar then went on to explain how that could possibly be the case given how successful the show has been.

“We made really bad deals. Poor deals, back then." Given that Saved by the Bell has been popular for decades, it is a shame the show's cast hasn't cashed in. That makes it even more amazing that Gosselaar seems to take the lack of residuals in stride. It is what it is. "You move on, you learn. Great experience.”

Did Mark-Paul Gosselaar Go Broke Because Of A Lack Of Residuals?

In the years since Saved by the Bell came to an end, there have been channels that have rerun the show multiple times daily. With that in mind, Gosselaar could have made a fortune if he was paid residuals from his Saved by the Bell tenure.

Fortunately for Gosselaar, however, he has remained a successful actor in the years since Saved by the Bell ended. As an adult actor, Gosselaar has appeared in a short list of movies including Dead Man on Campus.

On the other hand, Gosselaar has become a television mainstay. In many cases, Gosselaar has shown up for an episode or two of memorable shows that were successful. More importantly, Gosselaar has also gone on to star in several shows.

Some of Gosselaar's starring roles are from shows like NYPD Blue, The Passage, Mixed-ish, and the reboot of Saved by the Bell that aired in 2020 and 2021. Thanks to all those roles, Gosselaar has an $8 million fortune according to celebrity net worth.

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On the other hand, there is a Saved by the Bell star whose finances were ruined because of signing a bad contract. Just like Gosselaar, Dustin Diamond signed a terrible deal to star in Saved by the Bell.

Unlike Gosselaar, however, Diamond never went on to land major roles after his Saved by the Bell tenure ended. Due to Diamond's bad Saved by the Bell contract and his lack of other roles, he went years without much money coming in.

That put Diamond dire financial position for years. During the 2000s, Diamond filed for bankruptcy protection and he sold t-shirts in an attempt to save his house from foreclosure. On top of that, Diamond needed money so badly that he lent his name to a video that was only meant to be viewed by adults.

If Diamond's Saved by the Bell contract was fairer, he may have been able to avoid all that and other scandals in his life.

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