Ex-E! host Catt Sadler finds herself a symbol of wage gap
NEW YORK (AP) — Catt Sadler may have walked out on her job late last year after discovering she was paid far less than a colleague, but the former E! News host says she’s found a better one — advocate. The former journalist is speaking out about the way women
are shortchanged when it comes to salaries and pointing to online tools they can arm themselves with during future negotiations.
“My story is not singular. There are dozens, countless hundreds, thousands of women experiencing the same thing that I did,” Sadler said. “And so I’ve heard from them and they’re saying, ‘Please fight this fight.’ They’re saying, ‘Please be our voice when we don’t have one.’”
Sadler, a longtime cohost of “Daily Pop” on E! Entertainment, left the network after learning that on-air partner Jason Kennedy made nearly twice as much money as she did.
She soon found herself a symbol of the wage gap, championed on the red carpet by celebrities that she used to interview, like Eva Longoria, Debra Messing, Natalie Portman and Laura Dern.
“They were saying my name but almost just as a symbol for all of the wrongs and trying to shine a light on that,” Sadler said. “It just reaffirms that there are enough women that have had it. Time is up. The silence? No more.”
Sadler has teamed up with Luna Bar, which is offering free online resources to combat pay inequality. The nutritional bar brand is also donating a portion of its profits to the American Association of University Women to fund salary negotiation resources.
Sadler said that until laws change or courts get involved, the responsibility of landing appropriate compensation falls on the individual.
But she noted that only 30 percent of women actually negotiate their salaries.
“That’s way too low. So we’ve got to get in the game, ladies,” she said. “We have to arm ourselves with not only the courage to stand up for ourselves and make some noise and knock on the door and say, ‘This is my work and this is what I want.’ But we have to be able to back it up with substantial tangible information that makes our argument a strong one.”