The gender pay gap remains alive and well in Hollywood, at least according to Joy Reid, who said she was paid a fraction of what her fellow MSNBC hosts earned despite drawing higher ratings.
Speaking at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival’s C-Suite Soirée on August 7, as reported by People, Reid reflected on her tenure at the cable news network, where she served as a national correspondent for MSNBC following the cancellation of her afternoon show The Reid Report in early 2015. She began hosting The ReidOut in 2020 until it was canceled last February.
“The curse of competency means you’re the best person at what you do,” Reid told the founder of social impact consulting firm Full Circle Strategies Jotaka Eaddy, relaying a conversation she’d had about workplace issues. “You know more than everyone else because you’ve had to do more work and more research to get where you are, and so therefore you’re the one everybody calls.”
“Which means,” she continued, “that because you are the best at it, you actually work the hardest, do the most hours, work the most overtime, and don’t get paid commensurate to the amount of work you do.”
Reid spoke about pay disparities not only throughout her career but also during her time at MSNBC.
“I worked in a business where I was paid a tenth of the salary of people who did literally my same job, the whole time I worked there,” she said of MSNBC. “And we knew that any man that was doing what I was doing was going to make more than me. And that they were going to be able to negotiate higher salaries, even at lower ratings.”
Reid went on to say that her male counterparts tend to have it easier as they “less hours and make more than us, get bigger raises, more opportunities, and more grace. This is the world we live in.”
The ReidOut cancellation occurred as part of a sweeping lineup restructuring under new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler, who took leadership in early 2025. According to reports, the network aimed to revamp its primetime strategy and expand news-gathering operations. Joy Reid’s 7 p.m. slot was replaced with a new panel show, The Weeknight.
Reid can be found on The Joy Reid Show on YouTube, where she offers her unfiltered opinions on news, pop culture, politics, and events shaping today’s world.