And worth every penny

TV Guide, eschewing Us Magazine’s “Stars: They’re Just Like Us!” rhetorical horse dung, offers a “Stars: Their Outrageous Salaries May Be The Harbinger Of A Civilian Uprising That May Usher In An Era Of Socialism!” report revealing celebrity incomes.

Here’re the ones intended to scandalize you the most:

OPRAH WINFREY: $260 million per year (including other shows she produces) (That’s an awful lot of self-empowerment.)

SIMON COWELL: $45 million per year (for American Idol and other projects) (Being mean pays well.)

JUDGE JUDY: $30 million per year (Yes, being mean pays extremely well.)

KATIE COURIC: $15 million per year (Being beleaguered pays pretty well, too.)

ZACH BRAFF: $6.3 million (for 18 episodes of Scrubs next season) (Or, roughly, $1 per viewer for an average episode).

The most surprising of these, to my mind, is Judge Judy, because her show is the most throwaway of the bunch and all she does is bully the poor boobs who appear before her. And she blows it all on Dolce & Gabbana judicial robes.

And more:

NETWORK PRIME TIME (all salaries are per episode)
William Petersen (CSI): $500,000
Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men): $350,000
Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU): $350,000
Chris Meloni (Law & Order: SVU): $350,000
Hugh Laurie (House): $300,000
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (New Adventures of Old Christine): $225,000
Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy): $200,000
Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives): $200,000
Jeff Foxworthy (Are You Smarter Than…): $150,000
T.R. Knight (Grey’s Anatomy): $125,000
Chandra Wilson (Grey’s Anatomy): $125,000
Sally Field (Brothers & Sisters): $100,000

The shocker here: Ellen Pompeo’s paycheck, which is twice two-time Oscar-winner Sally Fields. At least the others on this list capably service their roles. A Johns Hopkins University study found that Pompeo’s watery simpering has provoked an alarming uptick in cutting and other forms of self-mutilation amongst “Grey’s Anatomy” viewers.

And more: