A Right Royal F**k Up: Claire Foy paid less than Matt Smith for 'The Crown'

What hope is there for the gender pay gap when even the Queen can’t get the dough she deserves?

It really does come to something when the actual (fake) Queen is paid less than her consort, The Duke of Edinburgh but that is the reality for the queen of our hearts, Claire Foy.

After completing two seasons of Netflix’s The Crown, the show’s producers have only just ‘realised’ that they ‘accidentally’ (slash on purpose) paid the leading actress less than her on-screen husband, Matt Smith. HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE? Claire Foy is the clear lead in the show by a mile?

The revelation came during a panel discussion at the INTV Conference on Tuesday, where the show’s producers, Suzanne Mackie (HELLO YOU ARE A WOMAN!) and Andy Harries finally acknowledged the right royal f*ck up. “The producers acknowledged that [Smith] did make more due to his Doctor Who fame, but that they would rectify that for the future,” Vanity Fair reported from the event. Mackie later added, “Going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen.” What a realization that must have been… enter sarcasm here…

FYI Matt Smith last appeared in Doctor Who in 2014, hardly making his appearance in said show a justifiable reason for paying him more. Moreover when the most expensive show ever made with a budget of $7million per episode can’t pay a female lead accordingly there isn’t much hope for the pay gap finally closing in the entertainment industry. Claire was paid an estimated $40,000 per episode for her Golden Globe winning star turn – surely the accolades Foy won alone deserved a bonus for season two?

The Crown resumes filming this July with the action jumping forward to the 1970s and Olivia Coleman taking the crown – who unlike Foy will actually, probably, maybe, get paid the same as the new consort, Hugh Laurie. But then again, wasn’t Laurie in Stuart Little like twenty years ago? Surely that means he should be paid more…