Apple Paying Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston $1.25M Per Episode for Upcoming Morning Show Drama

Apple is paying Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston "upward of $1.25 million" a piece for each episode of their upcoming morning talk show drama series, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The show, which is based on Brian Stelter's non-fiction book "Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV" explores the drama-filled lives of the men and women who star on morning talk shows.

anistonwitherspoonshow
Witherspoon and Aniston's $1.25 million salary per episode includes fees for executive producing and points on the show's backend, as both are serving as executive producers on the series. Apple has already ordered 20 episodes of the show, split into two seasons.

Witherspoon's high salary on Apple's new television show drove up the price of her salary on the second season of HBO's "Little Big Lies," for which she will receive $1 million per episode.

One Hollywood agent told The Hollywood Reporter that if HBO matches Apple's price, "it inflates the whole ecosystem of TV actor salaries." HBO programming president Casey Bloys wasn't as concerned, though.

"It's not a shock to anybody that having a second season of an ongoing series is easier to have with those deals in place," HBO programming president Casey Bloys tells THR. "Every outlet has to make their own decisions about economics that make sense for them. I'm not going to shake my fist and say, 'Darn it, Apple!' If that's what made sense for them for that show, God bless."

In addition to the morning show drama, Apple is working on two other TV shows with Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine production company with Witherspoon serving a executive producer. One is "Are You Sleeping," a psychological thriller starring Octavia Spencer, while the other is an untitled comedy series starring Kristen Wiig.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Popular Stories

iPhone Air

Report: 'Virtually No Demand' for iPhone Air

Wednesday October 22, 2025 3:22 am PDT by
Apple is "drastically" cutting production of the iPhone Air and shifting focus toward the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro models, Nikkei Asia reports. The business publication claims to have learned of a major cut to iPhone Air production motivated by weaker-than-expected consumer interest, nearly to "end of production levels." Despite early reports of the iPhone Air selling out within hours of...
sam sung auction

Former Apple Employee Sam Sung Changed His Name to Avoid Attention

Wednesday October 22, 2025 4:44 pm PDT by
Back in 2012, an Apple retail employee named Sam Sung went viral because his name is similar to Samsung, one of Apple's main competitors. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he detailed that period in his life, how Apple responded, and he explained why he ultimately changed his name. Someone posted an image of Sung's Apple business card on Reddit in 2012, and it spread rapidly....
cadillac lyric infotainment

GM to Remove CarPlay from All Future Vehicles, Including Gas Cars

Wednesday October 22, 2025 11:34 am PDT by
General Motors began phasing out support for CarPlay in its electric vehicles back in 2023, leading to complaints from iPhone users, but the company has no plans to back down. In fact, GM is going further and plans to remove CarPlay from all future gas vehicles, too. In an interview with The Verge, GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company opted to prioritize its platform for EVs, but the...
iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:15 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more. iOS 26.1 is currently in beta testing. The update will likely be released in the first half of November, and it is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer, but some...
All Screen iPhone 2027 Feature 1

Apple's Plan to Launch Three New iPhone Designs Allegedly Revealed

Wednesday October 22, 2025 6:24 am PDT by
Apple plans to launch a new type of iPhone every year for the foreseeable future, according to an Asia-based source. The detailed information was shared by the account "yeux1122" in a blog post on the Korean platform Naver, citing domestic trend and component research companies. Corroborating other reports, Apple will apparently launch its first foldable iPhone in 2026, featuring a...
ios 26 1 liquid glass opaque

iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
maxresdefault

Apple's iPhone Air Experiment Fails as Supply Chain Cuts Production by 80%

Wednesday October 22, 2025 10:48 am PDT by
iPhone Air demand failed to meet Apple's expectations and the company's supply chain is scaling back shipments and production, reports Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Suppliers are expected to reduce capacity by more than 80 percent between now and the first quarter of 2026, and some components with longer lead times will be discontinued ...
All Screen iPhone 2027 Feature 1

Report: Apple to Skip 'iPhone 19' Name for 'iPhone 20'

Thursday October 23, 2025 4:28 am PDT by
Apple's new iPhone lineup launched in the fall of 2027 will be called the "iPhone 20" models, rather than the "iPhone 19," according to research firm Omdia. Speaking at a conference in Seoul (via ETNews), Omdia Chief Researcher Heo Moo-yeol corroborated rumors that Apple plans to move the launch of its standard iPhone to the first half of the year and provided some additional clarity about...
iOS 26

What's New in iOS 26.1 Beta 4

Monday October 20, 2025 1:02 pm PDT by
Even though we're at the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple is continuing to add new features. In fact, the fourth beta has some of the biggest changes that we'll get when iOS 26.1 releases to the public later this month. We've rounded up what's new below. Liquid Glass Transparency Toggle Apple added a toggle for customizing the look of Liquid Glass. In Settings > Display and Brightness,...

Top Rated Comments

CrystalQuest76 Avatar
101 months ago
While female actors deserve the same pay as a male actor, no actor deserves that kind of money. Lets get a little perspective. Actors don't really do not work that many hours or contribute that much to the product to deserve such high salaries compared to other employees working on the project. There are many people involved in the creation of a show/movie. Most of them work year round, many of them more than 60 hours a week. the majority of the production time, the actors are standing or sitting around waiting for the sets and camera work to be prepared.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
aaronhead14 Avatar
101 months ago
Apple is so out of touch with what people want.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
avanpelt Avatar
101 months ago
I wish Apple had just stuck to making best-in-class software that runs on great hardware.

I have yet to hear a single person say, "You have to check out this awesome show on Apple Music!" (which sounds like a stupid thing to say, to begin with.) People have told me I have to check out a cool new show on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video more times than I can count, but I've never heard anyone get excited about an Apple-exclusive show. Maybe this will be the show that turns the tide, but I'm not optimistic.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
filmantopia Avatar
101 months ago
Good. These women deserve every cent any male actor would make.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ssmed Avatar
101 months ago
Whilst that is probably the going rate for such things and they are both good actors, my message to Apple is 'please return to being a technology firm with vision and much better quality control. It's good to specialise. Really!'
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DEMinSoCAL Avatar
101 months ago
Good. These women deserve every cent any male actor would make.
What does your statement have to do with the article apart from you chiming in on an unrelated current event? The article says nothing about any male actors. If there are some, how do you know they are being paid the same?

Personally, I don't think it anyone's business how much someone makes, but when they feel they have to make it public, people feel the need to judge. Considering it takes me 10 years to make as much money as each of them will make in a week, I can't say it's deserving. But then neither are sports salaries--9 figure salary for a pitcher on a baseball team?
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)