The Walking Dead star Khary Payton has taken to Instagram to defend co-star Lauren Cohan in her months-long dispute for a greater pay raise for the show’s ninth season.
Cohan, 36, has been renegotiating her contract with AMC after she was offered a ‘modest’ salary increase.
In her dispute she allegedly initially fought to be paid on par with the show’s lead male actors Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus.
Khary Payton, who plays King Ezekiel took to Instagram to share the blunt message ‘Pay the woman’.
Walking Dead star Lauren Cohan, 36, (above) has been in a months-long contract renegotiation after she was offered a ‘modest’ salary increase
Her co-star Khary Payton, who plays King Ezekiel, has taken to Instagram to share this image and the caption ‘Pay the woman’ rallying behind her in her fight for a more substantial pay raise
Cohan (right) pictured on the show with Payton (left) has found words of support from her co-stars who agree that she deserves a greater pay raise for the show’s ninth season
Payton posted the image on his Instagram page last Sunday coupled with a photo of Cohan where her eyes seem to pierce the camera lens and where her arms are folded, a message that says she means business.
Cohan has been a seven-year staple on the show playing the prominent role of Maggie since season two.
The Walking Dead is preparing to film the ninth season of the comic-based drama.
Cohan allegedly turned down the first contract offer that set a small ‘modest’ salary increase on the table, seeking to have a contract equal to that of the two male leads, according to Deadline.
Although other sources claim she no longer seeks equal pay but a more substantial pay raise instead, she is yet to come to an agreement with the network.
It was also reported that male leads Lincoln and Reedus get paid ‘significantly more’ than the female colleagues on set.
Female stars on the show are reportedly paid much less than the male leads such as Andrew Lincoln (left) pictured with Cohan (right) who has been a staple on the show since Season 2
At first Cohan rejected the Season 9 contract offered by AMC because she wanted a contract on par with that of lead actors Norman Reedus (left) and Andrew Lincoln (right)
Khary Payton, above, posted Cohan’s image to rally support for her pay raise last week
Even if AMC does not come to an agreement with the Cohan, she has reportedly been receiving a myriad of pilots for other shows where she’d be the lead role, according to Deadline.
At the moment she is not contractually obligated to remain with the show for the next season, which has topped rating charts and is currently the number one drama on television.
She has reportedly already signed to another pilot Whiskey Cavalier on ABC, according to the Hollywood Reporter, alongside actor Scott Foley.
Sources have said that ABC will allow the actress to ‘return in a limited capacity’ to the set of Walking Dead to close out her character’s storyline.
But sources have said that ‘the actress and her agents are not happy’ with offers from AMC.