‘Home Improvement’ Co-Star Patricia Richardson Says Pay Disparity With Tim Allen Ended Show

One of the biggest sitcoms of the 1990s might have continued for one more season had star Patricia Richardson received a pay improvement.

When Richardson, 73, spoke to the Los Angeles Times for the 25th anniversary of the series finale, she shared that Allen was being offered $2 million per episode to return for a 25-episode ninth season, and ABC offered her $1 million per episode.

Richardson said that prior to the end of the eighth season, she and Allen agreed that Home Improvement was done. Longtime directors had left the series, which put Allen and Richardson in the awkward position of explaining their established characters to newcomers. She told her friends “there’s not enough money in the world to get me to do a ninth year. The show is over. It needs to end.” Allen agreed, according to Richardson, until he saw Disney’s extension offer.

Allen was willing, but Richardson wanted to spend more time with her family in the wake of her divorce from Ray Baker.

Richardson felt betrayed and used Allen’s acceptance to end the series. She asked for the exact same offer, fully aware that she would be declined.

Her pitch to ABC: pay her the same amount as Allen and give her an executive producer credit on the show. Then she would sign on for another season.

She offered it knowing it was doomed.

“I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much,” she told the Times. “That was my way to say ‘no’ and was a little bit of a flip-off to Disney. I’d been there all this time, and they never even paid me a third of what Tim was making, and I was working my ass off. I was a big reason why women were watching.”

The show ended after its eighth season in 1999. That led to some bad blood.

“I was mad at Tim because he was leaving me alone, being the only person saying no, which made me feel terrible and like the bad guy,” she said, “and he was upset with me for leaving.”

Richardson and Allen later reunited on his series Last Man Standing. She said she’s “never stopped loving working with him.”