The real singer in Josie And The Pussycats hasn't seen a residual since 2009

Kay Hanley, who provided the singing voice for Rachel Leigh Cook's character, says she was only paid for a day of work, despite working on the film for a month.

By Drew Gillis  |  June 26, 2026 | 9:25am
Film News Josie and the pussycats
The real singer in Josie And The Pussycats hasn't seen a residual since 2009

In the streaming era, residuals are a mess for many in Hollywood; it was a key issue raised during the joint writer-actors strikes in 2023. But people have been getting screwed over by Hollywood for far, far longer than that. The latest example of someone speaking out against this comes from Kay Hanley, the frontwoman of the band Letters To Cleo who lent her voice to Rachel Leigh Cook’s mouth for the 2001 movie Josie And The Pussycats. In the 25 years since the movie premiered—years which saw the movie become a cult favorite and earn some critical reappraisals—Hanley says she’s received less than $1,500 in residuals, and hasn’t received any payment since 2009. 

This is per a new story in Vulture, where Hanley admits the proper paperwork wasn’t filed with SAG when the film was made. “We just weren’t thinking about SAG contracts. I was supposed to be getting day sheets that were reported to the union, and I was supposed to be compensated with a daily union scale. None of that was a conversation. I don’t think Babyface knew he was supposed to be doing that, either,” she writes. “But I had an absolute blast.” She was on set for one day, so she has been paid what a regular extra would be paid, despite her role in the production being significantly different; she tallies her work on the film as taking about a month. But now Hanley says she’s having a near-impossible time trying to prove to SAG that she should be paid. “But what SAG wants from me now is pay stubs and documentation of time in the studio, which I don’t have,” she says. “I probably had paper airline tickets. There’s no way I can document that any of this happened, except: Watch the fucking movie, duh. That’s my voice coming out of Rachael Leigh Cook’s mouth.” 

For comparison, Hanley’s contributions to 10 Things I Hate About You have earned her about $50,000 in residuals since that movie premiered. Though that movie was a more immediate hit, she says that it took the past 25 years to understand the scale of what she’s missed out on from Josie And The Pussycats. She says she will soon have to pay far more for health insurance and kick her son off her plan. “And it’s because I really didn’t understand the job I did back then,” Hanley continues. “If I can miss these things, I can’t imagine how widespread it is.” You can read the whole story here.

 
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