Following its first season premiere in 2014, How To Get Away with Murder quickly became one of the most exciting shows of the year, earning ABC yet another ratings winner to their Thursday lineup, which already included Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy.

HTGAWM made a stellar debut, averaging at around 15 million viewers per episode, and with a strong start as such, it was inevitable that the show would not only return for another series but it would also see a huge salary boost for its lead star Viola Davis, who played criminal defense professor Annalise Keating.

The drama lasted for six seasons and ran from 2014 to 2020, all while sweeping up dozens of awards, including an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (Davis), an AFI TV got for TV Program of the Year, and a People’s Choice Award for Favourite Actress (Davis).

With such accolades, it’s believed that Davis saw a rapid surge as far as her salary per episode was concerned, but just how much was she making throughout her six years on one of the hottest shows on ABC? Here’s the lowdown…

Viola Davis’ Salary On ‘HTGAWM’

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Davis has accumulated a $25 million net worth, and to nobody’s surprise, a huge chunk of that fortune comes from her success with ABC.

In 2016, just two years after HTGAWM made its first season premiere, Variety reported that the mother of one was making roughly $250,000 per episode.

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The sum was interesting for many reasons. HTGAWM was still a fairly new show, but seeing how successful its viewership had been for two years straight, ABC bosses were not going to put up a fight in giving Davis the money she rightfully deserved.

Furthermore, Davis’ salary with ABC in 2016, as revealed by Variety, matched with Kerry Washington’s earnings, who was making a similar sum per episode with her drama series, Scandal, which ran from 2012 to 2018.

So, despite Davis’ addition to ABC two years after Washington, she was already commanding more money, which was not only impressive but also showed clear signs that the future was bright for the 55-year-old’s future over at the TV network.

Aside from the Variety report, there were no follow-ups on what Davis was making for the remaining seasons of HTGAWM, but it’s believed her salary could have increased to anywhere between $300k-$450k for the final two seasons in 2018 and 2019.

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And while these numbers certainly can’t be compared to what the cast members of The Big Bang Theory were pulling in per episode ($1 million), Davis still made it on the list of highest-paid actresses in Hollywood alongside Sofia Vergara and Kaley Cuoco.

Davis has certainly come a long way as far as her income in Hollywood is concerned. In 2018, she opened up about feeling undervalued and underpaid after signing on for a number of acting roles she was offered in the past.

While speaking to journalist Tina Brown, she explained, “I have a career that’s probably comparable to Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Sigourney Weaver. They had the same path as me, and yet I am nowhere near them. Not as far as money, not as far as job opportunities, nowhere close to it.

“But I have to get on that phone and people say, ‘You’re a Black Meryl Streep…There is no one like you.’ Okay, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth. You give me what I’m worth.”

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The Fences star continued by saying that, while she’s earned some of the prestigious awards in Hollywood, it has taken her a long time to feel justified with the salary she earns, because if she gets the same accolades as the likes of Streep, she questions why there had always been such a wide gap when it came to her wages.

“I got the Oscar, I got the Emmy, I got the two Tonys, I’ve done Broadway, I’ve done off-Broadway, I’ve done TV, I’ve done film, I’ve done all of it,” Davis stressed.

To put it into perspective, Streep has a net worth of $160 million while Davis is slowly but surely soaring at $25 million.

Other notable projects Davis has starred in over the years include Widows, Suicide Squad, 2011’s The Help, Prisoners, Get on Up, and Lila & Eve alongside Jennifer Lopez.

Speaking to PureWow about the end of HTGAWM in 2020, Davis seemed adamant on what she would miss the most, saying, “I’ll miss the characters and actors most of all. But like any goodbye, I look back on it with a whole new appreciation. I feel like we left behind a legacy of bold storytelling where everyone had a seat at the table, and I’m very proud of that.”

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