Catt Sadler is leaving E! television after more than a decade ― with hard feelings.
The longtime host of the entertainment channel’s “E! News” revealed on her website Tuesday that she quit because her employer denied a pay raise she requested after she discovered that her male co-host, Jason Kennedy, “made close to double my salary for the past several years.”
“How can I operate with integrity and stay on at E if they’re not willing to pay me the same as him?” she wrote. “Or at least come close? How can I accept an offer that shows they do not value my contributions and paralleled dedication all these years? How can I not echo the actions of my heroes and stand for what is right no matter what the cost? How can I remain silent when my rights under the law have been violated?”
E!, in a carefully worded statement, told HuffPost: “E! compensates employees fairly and appropriately based on their roles, regardless of gender. We appreciate Catt Sadler’s many contributions at E! News and wish her all the best following her decision to leave the network.”
Sadler, 43, a single mother of two who also hosts the two-hour daytime show “Daily Pop,” gave a disheartening account of her contract talks when she spoke to People. “Not only did [E!] refuse to pay me as much as my male counterpart, but they didn’t come close — nowhere close, not even remotely close.”
Sadler called her gig a “dream job” and said she adored Kennedy, her “TV husband” who started the same year she did. But now she’s a woman on a mission.
“The way I see it,” she wrote on her site, “I have an obligation to be an agent for change.”