Mario Lopez Backs Tiffani Thiessen: ‘Saved by the Bell’ Residuals Dried Up

• Mario Lopez backed up Tiffani Thiessen on X, replying “Real talk!” to her claim that her Saved by the Bell residuals have dried up.
• Thiessen, who played Kelly Kapowski, said in a Sept. 24 radio interview that the checks are “negative now” because “it costs more to print the check.”
• Lopez has said the young cast started at about $1,500 an episode on a Saturday-morning show, a small base for any reuse payment.

Mario Lopez, 52, has co-signed Tiffani Thiessen‘s claim that Saved by the Bell no longer pays her residuals. Lopez, who played A.C. Slater, answered coverage of her comments on X with two words: “Real talk!”

Thiessen, also 52, played Kelly Kapowski on the NBC series, which ran from 1989 to 1993.

What did Tiffani Thiessen say about her residuals?

Thiessen made the comment on Page Six Radio on Sept. 24. “I don’t think [I get residuals] for Saved by the Bell anymore. I think it has dried out,” she said, and added that the amount is “negative now” because “it costs more to print the check.”

She said the cast made very little from the show at the time and did not earn real money until she joined Beverly Hills, 90210 in 1994. The cast had little leverage, she said, and “made nothing” compared with what the show brought in.

How much did the Saved by the Bell cast get paid?

Lopez has put numbers on it. He has said the young cast started at about $1,500 an episode and topped out near $3,500, and he has called it “cartoon money” because the show aired on Saturday mornings, not in prime time. Thiessen has said the cast earned more only during the show’s single prime-time season.

A May episode of the Hollywood Demons podcast put the show’s advertising take at about $15 million by 1991, a figure the child-star manager Denise Simon cited. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack Morris, said on Watch What Happens Live in 2019 that the cast made “poor deals.”

Why would a hit show’s residuals dry up?

A residual is what a performer is paid when a show is used again after its first run: a rerun, a streaming licence. The rates come from the union agreements, today SAG-AFTRA’s.

They are tied to what the performer was originally paid or to the union minimum for that kind of production. We explained the mechanism when Ke Huy Quan described his first residual check from Temple of Doom.

For TV reruns, the payment steps down over time, and the show’s original run ended in 1993. A cast that started at about $1,500 an episode begins from a small base. Neither Thiessen nor Lopez gave a dollar figure for what they receive now.

What have Lopez and Thiessen said about the show before?

Lopez and Thiessen appeared together in a Peacock video in November 2021 in which the original cast looked back on the show.

When Dennis Haskins died on Sept. 27, Lopez, Thiessen and Lark Voorhies were among the first to pay tribute to the man who played Principal Belding.

More from Movies & TV: why Ted Lasso ended an episode with a tribute to Anthony Head and Christie Brinkley’s Fox Nation docuseries.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Tiffani Thiessen on Page Six Radio, Sept. 24, 2026; Mario Lopez on X, Oct. 1, 2026; Hollywood Demons podcast, May 2026; Mark-Paul Gosselaar on Watch What Happens Live, 2019. Yahoo Entertainment (Page Six), Oct. 1, 2026; Reality Tea, Oct. 1, 2026. SAG-AFTRA (residuals). Photos and video: Peacock (Saved by the Bell, 2021); TODAY (NBC), 2018; The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC), 2015; The Jennifer Hudson Show, 2025; The Howard Stern Show, 2012; KHOU 11, 2018; Extra, 2019; Saved by the Bell (Peacock), 2021.