REPORT: Real Housewives Now Making $500,000 A Season

Bravo

The remaining cast members of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York will make more money from the show next season ... thanks to their cast mates getting the boot!

Because Jill Zarin, Kelly Bensimon, Cindy Barshop and Alex McCord were let go from the cast last month, veterans LuAnn de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan and Ramona Singer are seeing their salaries jump from $275,000 a season to $500,000 a season for Season Five, says The New York Post.

Things have changed since the early seasons, when the women were making just $7,500 per season.

The Post says that, because women like Zarin, who had been on the cast since Season One, are gone, Bravo has more money in its budget to increase the salaries of Lesseps, Morgan and Singer. The new cast members, as rookies, will only make about $5,000 an episode to start.

Now they really don't have an excuse to be bankrupt (Sonja!)