Mario Lopez Backs Up Tiffani Thiessen After She Says “It Costs More to Print the Check” About Saved by the Bell Residuals

Mario Lopez needed only two words to join a conversation about Hollywood money. On Wednesday, Sept. 30, the Saved by the Bell star wrote “Real talk!” on X, sharing coverage of costar Tiffani Thiessen’s claim that a hit teen sitcom now pays her next to nothing. Behind that short reply sits a trail of numbers, from $1,500 salaries to checks worth pennies. The first of those figures surfaced a week earlier, in a radio studio.

Thiessen Told Page Six Radio on Sept. 24 That Her Saved by the Bell Money Has Dried Out

Thiessen, 52, appeared on SiriusXM’s Page Six Radio, where hosts Evan Real and Danny Murphy asked whether she still collects residuals, the payments performers earn when a show reruns or streams. She said she thinks the money has dried out. She joked that the figure is now negative and that it “probably costs more to print the check,” according to The Tab. Then she described what the cast earned the first time around.

Thiessen Says the Teen Cast Had Little Leverage and Saw Real Money Only After 90210 in 1994

In the same interview, Thiessen said the young actors held almost no bargaining power while the series aired on NBC from 1989 to 1993. Pay edged up slightly once the franchise moved to primetime. The earnings she considers significant arrived in 1994, when she joined Beverly Hills, 90210 as Valerie Malone, a role far removed from sweet-natured Kelly Kapowski. Years later, a child-star manager put a dollar figure on what one of her costars took home.

Manager Says Lopez Started at About $1,500 an Episode While the Show Pulled in an Estimated $15 Million

On the docuseries Hollywood Demons: After the Bell, manager Denise Simon said Lopez began at roughly $1,500 an episode, a fortune to a kid. She then added a second number: after its second season in 1991, she claimed, the show was bringing in about $15 million in advertising. According to The Tab, Lopez told Howard Stern in 2014 that his pay eventually reached $3,500 a week. Another castmate had already summed up their contracts in four words.

Gosselaar Admitted in 2019 the Cast Signed Bad Deals, Then Revealed Checks of 10 and 13 Cents

Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack Morris, told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live in 2019 that the cast “made really bad deals,” according to E! Online. On a 2022 episode of the podcast Inside of You, he got more specific: some of his syndication checks had shrunk to just 10 or 13 cents. Complex reports he also said the cast never saw a dime from merchandise.

Thiessen Spotted Kelly Kapowski on Popular T-Shirts and Says It Left Her Angry

Later in the Page Six Radio interview, Thiessen recalled seeing her character’s face on popular T-shirts and feeling angry that nothing came back to her. The merchandise demand had a clear source. By 1992, the Los Angeles Times described the show as the top-rated Saturday-morning program among teens, Complex reports, and NBC expanded it to two half-hour installments. Years after that peak, a friend of the late Dustin Diamond showed viewers a check dated 2002.

Late Dustin Diamond’s Friend Displayed a $12.74 Residual Check From 2002 on Camera

Earlier this year, Dan Block, a friend of Diamond, the actor who played Screech Powers, showed a residual check worth $12.74 during an episode of Hollywood Demons: After the Bell, according to Complex. The check dated back to 2002, nearly a decade after the original series wrapped. Gosselaar has said he laughs at amounts that small, since someone had to print each one. Thiessen’s cast is hardly the only one describing numbers like these.

Jodie Sweetin Received a One-Cent Residual Check, and an Orange Is the New Black Star Reported $27.30

Full House ran eight seasons on ABC and inspired a five-season Netflix revival, yet Jodie Sweetin says a recent residual check came to a single cent, according to Complex. Kimiko Glenn once shared a foreign royalties statement totaling $27.30 for Orange Is the New Black, a series Netflix said 105 million households had sampled by 2019. Lauren Graham has said Gilmore Girls earns no residuals on Netflix. Days before Lopez posted, the Bayside cast had received very different news.

Dennis Haskins, TV’s Principal Belding, Died at 75 Days Before Lopez’s Post

Dennis Haskins, who played Principal Richard Belding across the show’s original run, died in late September at age 75, his agent, Jay Schachter, confirmed. Variety reports he appeared in nearly 90 episodes. Lopez paid tribute on Instagram, calling him the biggest kid on the set and a karaoke devotee. Complex noted the renewed conversation about Saved by the Bell money came just days after his death. A day after the tribute, Lopez posted again, this time about money.

Thiessen, Lopez and Gosselaar Have Now Described the Same Outcome From Three Angles

The accounts line up. Thiessen says the residuals have dried out, Lopez confirmed it in two words, and Gosselaar has described checks worth 10 or 13 cents. The contracts, signed when the actors were young, left them with fixed salaries and almost no stake in what followed, from reruns to T-shirts. Saved by the Bell remains a ratings-era fixture that fans still revisit. The cast’s checks, by their own accounts, stopped growing long before the show’s popularity did.