Emmy Rossum has revealed that her years-long equal pay fight continues Shameless was only resolved because news of the dispute leaked to the public, and even then the turnaround was astonishing.
Talking further Call her dad with host Alex Cooper, Rossum described how a wage standoff that had dragged on for more than five years was settled in a single day when the story became public in late 2016.
“I was at a writer’s retreat and I hesitated and I opened Twitter and it was a headline that we were at an impasse and I was shaken,” she said.
“It’s a private business negotiation and I never imagined it would become public.”
Within a few hours the tide had turned.
“People seemed to write other articles, like comment on it right away, and be quite surprised that I wasn’t already getting equal pay. And it was resolved within a day. I was shocked, and frankly very, very surprised that we actually got it.”
Rossum played Fiona Gallagher, the fiercely talented eldest Gallagher sibling, across all 11 seasons of Showtime’s Shameless from 2011 to 2021.
William H. Macy was the marquee name when the show started, and Rossum acknowledged that his higher salary “made a lot of sense” at first, since she was relatively inexperienced in television.
But Fiona quickly became the show’s standout character, and Rossum emerged as Macy’s clear co-lead, in many episodes she had more screen time than his character Frank.
Her first attempt to renegotiate came before season three, when her team felt the evidence of her contribution was strong enough to make the case.
It was refused.
“We didn’t get it… and that’s fine. We tried and we didn’t get it,” she said, adding with characteristic pragmatism, “It’s always scary to ask for what you think you’re worth. It’s their job to do the show for as little as possible to make the most profit. That’s any business.”
The pre-season eight request was similarly “shut down pretty quickly,” leaving the situation at an impasse that Rossum wasn’t sure would ever be resolved.
Then the leak happened and everything changed.
Macy had publicly supported her co-star throughout. He told TMZ at the time it was “like damn time” she received equal pay, adding: “She works just as hard as I do. She deserves everything.”
At Vulture Fest in 2017, he was equally blunt: “Who’s the center of the show? It’s Fiona. Of course she needs to be paid.”
Rossum returned for seasons eight and nine before leaving to focus on her own projects, including developing Peacock’s Angelyne and establishment of a production company.
She was clear that her exit had nothing to do with lingering anger.
“I just want to stay professional and my focus is never on money, it’s on what’s fair and what’s right,” she told Cooper.
“It was really about being valued equally when I was doing equal work. To me, it was as simple as that. I was very, very happy when we got it and very, very happy for what it seemed to do for other women.”
