Actor Micheal Ealy recently revealed that he agreed to star in the upcoming fourth season of Being Mary Jane as a favor to Gabrielle Union, but apparently Viacom and BET must be going broke trying to cover both of their appearance fees being that they’re now trying to make up for his involvement by taking the cash out of Gabrielle Union’s check..
-Michael Ealy; “I had turned down several network offers, as I really was not interested in doing another show at the time, but because Gabrielle is a friend, I told her that I’d seriously think about and talk with my team. At the end of the day, I felt like we all have a social responsibility to help elevate material with people of color in any way that we can, and if there was an opportunity for me to help my friend and the cultural perceptions of our work, then I would do my part.” -Deadline
With some networks starting to make it a habit to film 2 seasons worth of episodes for a show, but air it as 1 long season that’s split in half, they’ve been able to keep from having to pay the cast of the shows twice. But Gabrielle Union is one of the first to finally call foul for this practice and plans to take legal action against the network for trying to pull the stunt on seasons 4 an 5 of Being Mary Jane..
“Although BET represented and assured Ms. Union before she agreed to perform in Being Mary Jane that it would never produce more than thirteen 13 episodes per season of the series,” the suit says, “BET now wants to shoot twenty 20 episodes of the series back-to-back and cram all of the episodes into a single season in order to fraudulently extend the term of Ms. Union’s contract, with no additional consideration, and to deprive Ms. Union of her agreed-upon compensation for the next two seasons of Being Mary Jane.”
“By way of example, for Season Four of the Series, the Agreement provides that Plaintiffs are to be paid $150,000 per episode for a minimum of thirteen 13 episodes of the Series, and for Season Five of the Series the Agreement provides that Plaintiffs are to be paid $165,000 per episode for a minimum of thirteen 13 episodes of the Series.” Union is seeking general damages of at least $3 million. –Deadline