Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch bag pay rises for seasons 11 and 12

Actors Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch are finally on board for The Big Bang Theory season 11 and season 12. According to Variety, the actresses have signed new deals with the CBS show with hefty pay raises.

Both Bialik and Rauch will make $500,000 (£386,160) per episode for TBBT Seasons 11 and 12 — each of which will consist of 24 episodes, the report said. Their new per-episode fee is a significant increase from the $175,000-$200,000 per episode that each had been making in recent seasons.

It was reported that the show's cast – Jim Parsons (who plays Sheldon Cooper), Kaley Cuoco (who plays Penny), Johnny Galecki (who plays Leonard Hofstadter ), Simon Helberg (who plays Howard) and Kunal Nayyar (who plays Rajesh) – all of who are earning $1m per episode, volunteered to cut their per-episode fee by $100,000 each to free up money to give Bialik and Rauch a raise.

Bialik plays Dr Amy Farrah Fowler, who is a neurobiologist and the girlfriend of the show's lead star Sheldon Cooper. Rauch plays Dr Bernadette Maryann Rostenkowski-Wolowitz, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and is married to Howard Wolowitz. They recently had a child named Halley on the show. Both the actresses first appeared on the show in season 3 and became regular cast members the following season.

Bialik – who is also a neuroscientist in real life – has earned four consecutive Emmy nominations for best supporting comedy actress. The 41-year-old actress recently released a video explaining her problem with calling grown women "girls". She said, "Why? Because it matters what we call people. Language matters. Words have meaning. And the way we use words changes the way we frame things in our mind."

"So when we use words to describe adult women that are typically used to describe children, it changes the way we view women, even unconsciously, so that we don't equate them with adult men. In fact, it implies that they're inferior to men," the CBS star said.