‘L Word’ Stars Kate Moennig, Leisha Hailey Recount Pay Battles on ‘Generation Q’ Sequel

Two stars of Showtime’s groundbreaking series The L Word are sharing the struggles they encountered with securing equal pay in the show’s sequel.

Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig talked about their pay battle on the podcast Cool Cool Cool, hosted by Liz Culley. When they joined The L Word: Generation Q, Showtime’s 2019 follow-up to The L Word (which ended in 2009), they initially agreed to deals that were worth less than what they thought they deserved — Hailey in particular. The long-time friends teamed up to renegotiate better terms for Generation Q’s second season.

The two also recount the pay battle in their forthcoming book So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family and the Show That Started It All. The memoir from St. Martin’s Press, which tracks how Hailey and Moennig’s time on The L Word sparked a long-lasting friendship and eventually a business partnership, is set for a June 3 release. The video of the Cool Cool Cool episode is below; the pay conversation starts at the 40-minute mark.

“I can’t judge ourselves at the time because we had worked for over 10 years in trying to get this thing back, and it finally happened,” Moennig said. “And like I said in the book, it happened literally overnight. We were so desperate for this to be a reality.”

“And we worried if we waited, it wouldn’t happen,” Hailey added. “Or we were told if we wait, it wouldn’t happen.”

Moennig continued, “It’s that thing that we as women carry around of like, we don’t want to be too difficult. [But] we should be difficult. … We should have known better, but we didn’t, and that’s OK. That’s not our fault. We were so hungry to make this a reality.”

Hailey said on the podcast that she was grateful that Moennig “had her back” in the renegotiation. Hailey hadn’t worked as regularly in the years between the two L Word series, while Moennig went on to a long-running role on another Showtime drama, Ray Donovan.

“I was the lowest paid,” Hailey recalled. “Kate had my back and said, Leisha and I should make the same. That meant the world to me. They didn’t do that [at first]. But eventually, Kate and I in the second season got to say, like, ‘Come on, that’s a fucking joke.’ If you’re not gonna value us, at least make us equal. At least do that. And I have to give it to Kate — she was my only support system in that.”

Cool Cool Cool host Culley is senior vp sales and brand strategy at The Hollywood Reporter.