Juliette Porter revealed that starring on Siesta Key “shaped” who she is — and padded her bank account in the process.
Porter, 28, recalled being 17 when she filmed the MTV pilot before attending Florida State University with the dream of becoming a lawyer.
She said during the Monday, August 11, episode of the “Trading Secrets” podcast that once the series was picked up in 2017, she was only 19 and soon her life trajectory changed, noting that being an attorney is not who she was “at my core.”
Porter claimed that during season 1 of the reality show, which followed a young group of friends in the Florida city, she made $1,500 an episode, totaling approximately $20,000 for the season.
“I think season 2 I made about $60,000. But we did double the amount of episodes,” she shared, confirming that her pay scale continued to go up before the show ended in 2022 after five seasons.
Porter claimed that she’s now “a billionaire” thanks to becoming a reality TV star so young. Her pivotal role as the series’ narrator also helped her make more money.
“I would narrate it, and we would all have to get paid for the sake of fairness the same episodically,” she recalled.
The JMP The Label founder explained she “tried to fight it” because she was “sorta the main character.” Porter paused before confessing, “I just don’t want to sound like a douche.”
Being the show’s narrator a.k.a. the voice over who guides each episode, she had the power to up her salary.
“I would negotiate my narration fee to be huge,” Porter told host Jason Tartick. “I got something like $120,000 for narration. That would be about I think total five hours of work. That was what we would do.”
Siesta Key premiered in 2017 and starred Porter, Madisson Hausburg, Kelsey Owens, Garrett Miller, Amanda Marie Mizell, Alex Kompothecras, Chloe Trautman and Brandon Gomes.
Once the series ended, Porter spread her wings and branched out on her own. She now cohosts her own podcast and is a swimwear designer.
“The reason I think the show ended is I do think a lot of things had changed,” Porter said on a March episode of her “Don’t Be Ridiculous” podcast. “These are my friends from high school through early, early 20s. I don’t really talk to them anymore. It’s a different era.”
She confessed, “Things were dying. I was ready to grow. I knew I was going to stay in Miami. They didn’t necessarily belong in Miami.” (The fifth and final season filmed in Miami.)
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