Former child star Josh Peck has divided opinion after revealing how much he earned starring in Nickelodeon’s hit teen show, Drake & Josh.
The now 39-year-old found fame playing Josh Nichols on one of the network’s biggest-ever shows, which ran for four seasons from 2004 to 2007.
Starring alongside Drake Bell, 39, the duo received their own show after appearing in The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes.
However, in a new interview, Josh revealed that despite the show’s success, he and Drake were only making “about $125,000 a year,” – a figure that has divided the internet.
“I came from a lot of financial insecurity growing up. I had a single mom, as an only child, and we sort of vacillated between being lower-middle-class and being broke,” Josh said of his financial past on the Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones podcast.
“But she worked in sales, so sometimes we had a great year, and I was getting like a new pair of Jordans, and sometimes I was like calling my grandma to help us pay for dinner because we had like $0.”
He continued: “And when I started working, on Drake & Josh specifically, and I’ve talked about this, because when I was writing my book, I wasn’t very transparent with it, the financials in my book.
“We started out making $3,000 an episode on The Amanda Show, and then by the time we finished Drake & Josh, so that was like 60 episodes total for the whole show, the average rate per episode was about $15,000.
© Getty Images“So over four years we ended up making about $900,000. But I think we probably between agent, manager, and taxes, we cleared half of that.”
Josh added: “Really, we were making about $125,000 a year. And people always will say, ‘Well, compared to so many other tougher jobs, like who are you to say anything?’ And I go, ‘I’m not.’
“The only reason I say it is because people always assume that it’s so much more and why would you ever have to work again? But of course, if you made the salary of a dentist or something like that, you couldn’t just stop working after four years.
© Getty Images“If you have it ingrained in you that you never want to be broke again, you will run like your pants are on fire for as long as you can and I have. And I saw that in myself forever, just a deep financial insecurity that drove everything I did.”
Josh’s revelation got people talking, with one person commenting on Reddit: “Oh nooo he was a kid making 200k a year. Sounds terrible.”
© Getty ImagesAnother said: “He said he took home around $500,000 over four years, while he was roughly 16 to 20 years old. Objectively speaking, that’s an extraordinary income for someone that age with limited education and no hard skills. Period.”
Others understood Josh’s reasoning, with one writing: “The point stands. You can’t retire on that. Not even close.” Another said: “The point is that they didn’t make life-changing ‘set for life,’ money after four years.”
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