Much of the conversation in the wake of Britney Spears and Sam Asghari’s separation has been about money and more specifically, his alleged lack of it. There’s been a lot of speculation about whether he’ll challenge the prenup. There’s been a lot of gossiping about whether she’s paying for the place he moved into while the divorce plays out. A cameraman even asked him how being “jobless” is affecting him. Fortunately, he had an A+ comeback ready that both supported SAG’s current strike efforts and referenced Leonardo DiCaprio.
The conversation happened in the midst of a picket line for SAG. In the video, which is currently running over at Page Six, the cameraman asks Sam Asghari how he’s holding up in the wake of his separation. He says he’s not there to talk about his personal life. The cameraman then says there have been reports going around that he’s currently jobless, and the personal trainer turned actor fired back with this excellent retort…
That’s the point of the strike. I have the same amount of jobs as Leonardo DiCaprio. I hope everything gets resolved very fast so we can go back to what we love doing the most, which is making art and inspiring people.
Accusations of being jobless hit a lot differently when everyone in your entire industry is striking and out of work. As he so aptly referenced, even Leonardo DiCaprio is unemployed right now. All actors (or at least those working in movies and TV in The United States) are currently out of work in protest of what they see as unfair working conditions.
Those working conditions mean a lot of things to a lot of different actors, but the most common issues are around streaming content and AI. For decades, actors were paid when their work was shown in reruns on television, but with the advent of streaming, there’s not really a system in place to compensate actors, nor is there any real transparency around how their work is doing. In addition, studios now have the ability to use technology to manipulate performances and reuse background actors, and there aren’t really rules in place regulating that.
So, Asghari is striking like Leonardo DiCaprio and everyone else. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that he does not have Leonardo DiCaprio money or Britney Spears money. As such, there will continue to be a lot of interest around how much he ends up getting in the separation and whether that allows him to continue the same quality of life he had with his soon-to-be ex-wife. Then again, it’s also possible, regardless of how the divorce plays out, that he could find his footing in Hollywood. He’s been working regularly over the last several years, but most of his roles have been of the supporting variety or multi-art guest stints on TV shows like Special Ops: Lioness and Black Monday.
As for the divorce itself, there’s still plenty of questions about what exactly happened there too. The rumors have been near non-stop and pointed the finger in a variety of directions. So far, we’ve gotten everything from she cheated on him to he would abandon her for weeks or months at a time. Maybe we’ll get some answers in a highly publicized divorce trial, or maybe the two sides will quietly settle and move on to avoid the media circus that would inevitably come with something drawn out. We shall see.