Catt Sadler made a bold move when she left E! News after discovering that her salary was half of her male counterparts.
Now, she's speaking out for the first time in a penned essay on Coveteur.
"You see, I didn’t start out on a crusade to be a voice for gender equality in the workplace; I didn’t have grandiose plans to organize powerful people and roar about equal pay," she wrote. "For me, at that time, it started out as simply the 'right thing to do.'"
Sadler also voiced how difficult it was to leave the company after spending 12 years with them.
"I didn’t want to disappear from people’s television screens after all those years and vanish into thin air without sharing my truth," she continued. "For me, in those moments, it was important to explain how I had been wronged and how I knew in my core that to stay would mean collaborating with an evil system. Swallowing my values was not an option. What happened to me was unfair."
Sadler also shared that she attempted to "make things right" by speaking with "decision makers" but was unsuccessful. "After exhausting all attempts to make things right, I asked the decision makers face to face, 'Why?' 'Why is he, in your opinion, worth so much more than I am? Is he doubly good at his job?' Their response? 'We’re obviously just looking through a different lens than you.' Yes, the 'he’s a male and therefore gets preferential treatment' lens.
Sadler left E! News last December, citing unequal pay in a blog post released soon afterward. Since then, she's been a topic of discussion for advocates fighting for equal pay between men and women including Amy Schumer, Eva Longoria, and Debra Messing, who have called out the news site. The latter of which did it while speaking to E!'s Giuliana Rancic on the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Sadler later told Page Six that she was "immensely grateful" to all the women for speaking up and supporting her, because after all, Time's Up.
