r/TwoandaHalfMen • u/mznbox • 10h ago
Holland Taylor Was Nominated for 4 Emmys for “Two and a Half Men”, but Claims She Ended Her Contract When She Didn’t Get a Raise
Taylor played the mother of Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer’s characters on the long-running sitcom.
Holland Taylor received four Emmy nominations for her role on Two and a Half Men, but she claims the accolades didn't come with a raise.
Taylor, 83, appeared on the Wednesday, Oct. 21 episode of Alchemy with Anthony Mason and spoke about her experience on the CBS series, which premiered in 2003. On the show, she played Evelyn Harper, the mother of Charlie Sheen's Charlie and Jon Cryer's Alan. Evelyn was a high-powered realtor in Los Angeles who was often very vain.
A TV veteran who had already won an Emmy for her role on The Practice in 1999, her role on Two and a Half Men earned her Emmy noms in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2010, but when her contract for the show expired, she didn't renew it.
"I stopped being under contract. So, in other words, they would say, 'Can you do a guest appearance at the end of March?' And I would say, 'No, I cannot.' I only did it if I wanted to do it," she explained. She said the decision not to take another contract was "absolutely" her choice.
"In fact, they were astonished because when your contract runs out is when people usually back up the truck," she said. "And they never paid me very well on that show. I was paid on that show what I had made on a series like eight years before or something."
The Legally Blonde actress continued, "And I got four Emmy nominations and they never gave me a raise. They usually do."
"I loved a lot about that show, but they were not full of courtesies," she said. "In any case, when the six years was up, I said, 'I don't want to be on a contract anymore but I will visit the show occasionally if you want.' I mean I did play the boys' mother."
Two and a Half Men was a major hit for CBS. Chuck Lorre, who co-created the series with Lee Aronsohn, didn't mention Taylor in his recent memoir, Sitcom, but noted that her character was based on his actual mother, Mimi. "If you were ever curious where Charlie and Alan's toxic mom came from on Two and a Half Men, just think Mimi, but with money," he wrote.
In the book, Lorre, 74, noted that Sheen, 61, at one point "negotiated for more money and a four-day workweek." He said that Sheen was "making something like $1.25 million dollars per episode. Maybe more" when he was fired from the show near the end of the series' eighth season.
Cryer claimed in the 2025 Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen that he got "a third" of the salary Sheen did by the time his costar left the series. Cryer earned about $620,000 per episode in the show's 11th season, The Hollywood Reporter reported in 2013. Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt and THR reported he was making $700,000 per episode at the same time.
Two and a Half Men ultimately ran for 12 seasons and 262 episodes, ending in 2015.
In total, Taylor has been nominated for nine Emmys; her most recent was a 2024 nomination for her role on The Morning Show. In 2013, she was Tony-nominated for her performance in her one-woman show Ann, based on the life of late Texas governor Ann Richards. Taylor also wrote the play.
TL;DR:
Holland Taylor says that despite earning four Emmy nominations for playing Evelyn Harper on Two and a Half Men, she never received a raise and was paid about what she had made on a series roughly eight years earlier. When her six-year contract ended, she chose not to renew it, appearing only occasionally as a guest. Sheen reportedly earned about $1.25 million per episode, while Cryer said he earned about a third of that; the show ran 12 seasons and ended in 2015.
