Today in most unexpected celebrity salary news, here's a pretty surprising report: According to Forbes, Modern Family hottie Sofia Vergara is currently TV's highest paid actress, over actresses like Zooey Deschanel (New Girl) and Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation).
It seems like a shocker at first glance, but, delving a bit deeper, it's actually not that surprising — Vergara's salary last year didn't really come from her part in Modern Family, though that did contribute quite a bit. As Forbes puts it:
As the reigning queen of celebrity endorsement deals (thanks largely to her bilingual portfolio), Vergara’s earnings over the past year reached $30 million [...] Vergara’s endorsement deals speak to the same set of consumers– Diet Pepsi, Covergirl, Rooms To Go and thyroid medicine Synthroid signed contracts this year in addition to Spanish-language commercials for laundry detergent, Comcast and State Farm insurance—deals that establish the star her one of the most in-demand spokespeople as marketers hope to capture her high-wattage crossover appeal.
So, it makes sense — endorsements are the real way that celebrities earn their crazy amounts of green, which is why George Clooney doesn't give two shits when people call him a sellout for doing overseas coffee commercials ("I go do coffee commercials overseas and I make a lot of money doing those, so I get to live in a nice house...I don't give a shit. And people will go, 'Oh, that's a sellout!' You know what? Fuck you!")
Vergara's $30 million in earnings is just barely rivaled by any other big earners on the list — number two is a tie between The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco and Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay with $11 million earned, and then number four is a tie between Tina Fey, Bethanny Frankel, the Kardashian sisters, and Ellen Pompeo, who all earned $10 million.
Even more impressive: This is Vergara's second year reigning the list. Basically, major props are due here — girlfriend is KILLING it out there.
