Donald Trump Asked for $6 Million an Episode to Host “The Apprentice —” Equal to the “Friends” Cast's Combined Salary
Vanity Fair's Ramin Setoodeh reveals in a new book that Trump was humiliated by his initial salary of $25,000 per episode, so he hatched a poorly received plan to become one of the richest men in TV
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Donald Trump on The Celebrity ApprenticeDonald Trump once asked NBC for a shockingly hefty raise during his reality television career.
The former president requested $6 million per episode to star in the second season of The Apprentice, according to an excerpt from Ramin Setoodeh's upcoming book, Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, which was obtained by Vanity Fair.
From May 21 through November 2023, the author interviewed Trump about his experience as a reality show host and his relationship with former NBCUniversial CEO Jeff Zucker. (The interviews, which contained a number of false and misleading statements from Trump, are heavily contextualized throughout the book.)
While Trump was negotiating his return for the second season of The Apprentice, the popular sitcom Friends was nearing its end — and the businessman tried to leverage the moment to get a larger paycheck and boost his image.
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The cast of 'Friends' circa 1995Trump noted that The Apprentice had comparable ratings to Friends, and even usurped them during a few weeks. (Setoodeh clarifies that the final season of Friends was shorter than previous ones and the network ran re-runs in anticipation of the finale.)
With that information in tow, Trump set out to get a raise from the $25,000 an episode he earned for the first season of the reality competition.
Related: Why NBC Didn't Want Ivanka Trump to Replace Her Father on The Apprentice, According to New Book
"Friends had six people,” Trump told Setoodeh. "They’re getting $1 million an episode each. That’s $6 million. So if they’re getting $6 million, and I have higher ratings than they do—because this is the end of Friends, and they were fading out—I said, 'You should pay me $6 million an episode.' "
The studio denied his request and allegedly told him, "It’s over."
"I said, 'Here’s what we’re going to do. Give me something less than six. If you’re paying Friends six, and I have higher ratings than Friends, you should pay me six! But give me something less than that. I’m reasonable,' " Trump claimed.
He continued to say that "they went nuts" and Zucker called him to say, "We’re not doing it… We already have someone else lined up."
Related: Donald Trump Once Contemplated a Season of 'The Apprentice' Pitting 'Blacks Against Whites'
Trump recalled: "I thought the deal was dead. I thought I just killed myself. They walked out—they were so angry. I said, 'That’s all right! Get somebody else.'"
The following day, Zucker reached out to make a deal which was "a fortune," he says.
While discussing his salary, Trump also claimed to have made "over $500 million" in total on the show, but Setoodeh states that Federal Election Commission filings reveal the actual number to be about $214 million.
Despite his poorly received salary demands, Trump continued to star on the show for several seasons — as well as the spin-off The Celebrity Apprentice — until 2015, when he was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger after deciding to run for president.
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Last month, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsified business records for aiming to conceal a conspiracy to corrupt the 2016 election, which prosecutors say began shortly after he left The Apprentice and launched his presidential campaign.
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