Jax Taylor Reveals His ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Season 1 Salary, And How Deep He Was In Debt Before The Show

Vanderpump Rules star Jax Taylor is dishing about his salary from Season 1 of the hit Bravo reality series. The former SUR bartender caught up with Heather McDonald for her Juicy Scoop podcast earlier this week. Jax spoke about a variety of topics with Heather, including Lisa Vanderpump, Billie Lee, and who was and wasn’t invited to his wedding to Brittany Cartwright.

He first spilled about his salary from the show’s debut season, and it’s more than most newbie reality stars make. According to Jax, he brought in $15,000 for his first season, and he admitted he had only been working at SUR for just over a month when he was approached about filming through then-girlfriend Stassi Schroeder.

“It was $15,000 to do the whole season,” Jax remembered. “They were giving us a lot. There was incentives and right off the bat I was getting promotions and deals and things like that.”

The 40-year-old also remembered that he was $30,000 in debt before the show began and said he had no money in his bank account. Jax has come a long way since his $15,000 days. Earlier this year, Distractify reported that Jax was now making $25,000 an episode and had a net worth of $400,000. With 21 episodes in Season 7 (excluding reunions), that means Jax made well over $500,000 last year alone.

When the topic of his wedding to Brittany arose, Jax said most of the Vanderpump Rules cast was there to celebrate with him. He admitted he did not invite James Kennedy or Raquel Leviss, for what he said were “obvious reasons.” The businessman also said he didn’t invite Billie Lee, mostly because of her behavior on Twitter last year when she wasn’t invited to Girl’s Night at SUR and because she also liked a comment which suggested Katie Maloney was transphobic.

“I think she really didn’t know how to handle the show very well and I think the things she was saying about the cast was completely untrue,” he said. “Things like that are extremely sensitive, especially in the time we are in right now. So, accusing people of saying things like that, especially saying things about us that were so untrue, like we were against the LGBTQ community, is not okay. And we didn’t want to have something like that around.”

Billie is not rumored to appear on the upcoming season of Jax and company’s show. Jax will return to Bravo for Season 8 of Vanderpump Rules, which is expected to debut later this year.