Here's an interesting wrinkle in the "consequences for your actions" narrative: Dasha Nekrasova, who appeared in HBO's "Succession," just lost her talent agency and a film role after hosting far-right commentator Nick Fuentes on her podcast. But when you look at the numbers, she might be less worried about losing acting gigs than you'd think.
Her "Red Scare" podcast pulls in roughly $42,500 per month through Patreon, which she splits with co-host Anna Khachiyan. That's over $250,000 annually before taxes, which puts her well ahead of most working actors financially. Turns out the side hustle might actually be the main hustle.
What Actually Happened
According to Deadline, The Gersh Agency dropped Nekrasova after the Fuentes interview started making the rounds in Hollywood. She also lost her role in a film called "Iconoclast" before contracts were even finalized.
The interview itself was a two-and-a-half-hour conversation with Fuentes, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier whose prominence has grown in recent months. Throughout the episode, Fuentes touched on antisemitic tropes and made offensive comments about ethnic groups, the Holocaust, and immigration. Nekrasova introduced the segment by calling herself "such a fan," and critics say neither she nor her co-host challenged his views.
This wasn't exactly a surprise to everyone. Producer and former actor Jonathan Daniel Brown had been emailing Nekrasova's agents at Gersh for two years, warning them about the podcast's guest list. The Fuentes episode was just the breaking point.
"You have someone [in Fuentes] that is calling for the expulsion and the deportation of all immigrants. This is somebody that actively hates Jewish people, that says Hitler was right, that the Holocaust was a hoax," Brown told The Hollywood Reporter. "And then you have [Nekrasova] supporting this."
Nekrasova defended her decision in a November 21 interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald. "I had Nick on because he obviously was an ascendant figure in not just right-wing media but media in general," she said. "Once they uncensored him he became incredibly prominent... To see his generational run, regardless of how you feel about him, was inspiring."
The Financial Reality of Acting
Here's where things get interesting from a money perspective. Losing agency representation and a film role sounds devastating, and professionally it might be. But financially? Maybe not so much.
SAG-AFTRA reports that nearly 86% of its members don't earn enough from acting to qualify for union health insurance, which requires around $26,000 in annual earnings. Think about that: the vast majority of professional actors in America can't even clear the relatively modest threshold needed for health benefits.
Against that backdrop, Nekrasova's split of the podcast revenue—roughly $21,250 monthly, or about $255,000 annually—represents a financial cushion that most actors would envy. She's not scrambling to book commercials to make rent.
The Podcast's Evolution
The "Red Scare" podcast launched in 2018 with what you might call a leftist "dirtbag" aesthetic. But over time, it's increasingly featured fringe right-wing figures, including Steve Bannon and alt-right writer Curtis Yarvin, in addition to Fuentes.
That shift has consequences. The podcast's Patreon revenue peaked at around $57,000 monthly in 2022 before settling at its current $42,500 level. Some of the original audience clearly walked away as the content changed direction. But a loyal, paying niche audience stuck around, and that's apparently enough to sustain a comfortable income.
The math here tells you something about the media landscape we're living in: a controversial podcast with a few thousand paying subscribers can generate more reliable income than a career in film and television for all but the most successful actors. Whether that's good or bad probably depends on your perspective, but it's certainly real.
