A host on E! television has left the network over a pay disparity between herself and her male co-host.
Catt Sadler, who has been with the network for more than a decade, wrote in a post on her personal blog that she left after recently learning that her co-host’s salary was nearly double her own.
Sadler, who was a host for E! News, was tapped by the network to also co-host their two-hour daytime show “Daily Pop.” She wrote in her post that around the same time, an E! executive alerted her to the pay disparity and that she learned the details after the network offered to renew and extend her contract.
“I learned that he wasn’t just making a little more than I was,” Sadler wrote. “In fact, he was making close to double my salary for the past several years.”
Sadler wrote that she requested pay that matched “what I know I deserve,” and was denied.
She added that she started at the network at the same time as her co-host, whom she said she refers to as her “T.V. husband.” She co-hosted the show with Jason Kennedy, but did not name him in the post.
{mosads}“I have two decades experience in broadcasting and started at the network the very same year as my close friend and colleague that I adore,” she wrote. “But how can I operate with integrity and stay on at E if they’re not willing to pay me the same as him? Or at least come close?
In her post, Sadler commended other women who have come forward in 2017 to “speak their truth,” and that she feels she has a duty to “be an agent for change.”
“Females refuse to remain silent on issues that matter most because without our voices, how will we invoke lasting change?” she wrote. “How can we make it better for the next generation of girls if we do not stand for what is fair and just today?”
E! released a statement on Tuesday saying that they compensate employees fairly.
“E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender,” a company spokesperson said, according to ABC News. “We appreciate Catt Sadler’s many contributions at E! News and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.”