Reese Witherspoon's $6M payday for narrating Quibi show angers staffers following layoffs

Reese Witherspoon's husband's staff are fuming as he hired her in the midst of cutbacks. Photo / Getty Images

Staff at streaming platform Quibi are furious after Reese Witherspoon was paid $8.65 million to narrate a TV show where her husband works.

Witherspoon voices the show Fierce Queens, which gives a feminist slant to nature documentaries by exploring heroic female animals including cheetahs, hyenas and ant queens, telling viewers: "Imagine a world where females call all the shots."

As the series has had poor ratings and is one of the least-watched shows on Quibi, workers are fuming that stars like Reese got paid millions in the midst of staffing cutbacks.

Witherspoon's husband, Jim Toth, is the head of content acquisition and talent at Quibi, and his wife was one of the celebrities he hired to make content, along with Jenniper Lopez and LeBron James.

The source told Page Six that Quibi has already cut overtime for its lowest level staffers and quietly let go of others, adding: "The mood is dark."

As of May, one month after launch, Quibi has only had 3.5 million app downloads which are reportedly disappointing figures for co-founder and former Disney studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg.

"It's not up to what we wanted," he said in May. "It's not close to what we wanted."