Neil Patrick Harris reveals eye-watering amount he was paid while filming How I Met Your Mother
Topics: Money, Film and TV, Celebrity
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images/CBS
Topics: Money, Film and TV, Celebrity
I don't really think Neil Patrick Harris needs any introduction.
We all know How I Met Your Mother, the hit CBS sitcom which landed a massive 8.3 rating on IMDb and aired between 2005 and 2014.
Harris played Barney Stinson in the TV show, a ladies man on good money... although we later discovered why he had so much cash.
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Well, in season nine, which was the final series, he revealed while intoxicated that his job is to 'provide legal exculpation and sign everything', which he describes as 'PLEASE' any time his friends ask him.
In the 'Unpause' episode, he explains to Ted and Robin that he was colluding with the police as they were worried he was being set up as the fall guy for his company's dodgy dealings.
Anyway, Barney was on some real cheese... and so was Harris it turns out, who was 32 when the first episode aired.
So what is the eye-watering amount of money he was on?
Well, the 51-year-old appeared on The Howard Stern Show and revealed just how much he was getting each week.
I say revealed, Howard Stern told listeners how much he was earning.
He said: "How I Met Your Mother, I thought you would have made more money on that show. You made $250,000 an episode when it ended."
Sorry, what? He was 40-years-old when the last season aired, and was making that much money and Stern thinks he was hard done by?
Well, Harris certainly didn't. He replied: "We were well paid by the end for sure."
Stern then continues to probe, asking him: "Are you happy with what you were paid on that show?
Laughing, Harris replied: "Are you kidding $250,000 a week? Yes I was happy with that."
He explained that Josh Radnor, who played the main character Ted Mosby, Jason Segel, who portrayed Marshall Eriksen, Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky, and Alyson Hannigan who was Lily Aldrin in the show, all earned $250,000 a week in the last season.
Although he did admit that he did try to negotiate more money than his fellow cast members around the fourth and fifth season.
Something that not everyone wished for as he explained that some of them tried to negotiate their pay as a group.
He said: “It seemed like we all had individual careers that we had nurtured up until that point.
“And so when you end up with an agent and a manager and an attorney, you have relationships with them and they’re hardcore fighting for you financially for your future.”
Adding: “It wasn’t like I was trying to take someone else’s money.
“I just wanted my team to fight as hard as they could for me for my next season’s worth.”
Fair play to Harris for speaking so openly about the whole situation, I admire him even more for that.