You’ve probably had many conversations with Siri if you have an iPhone. But who was the first voice actress and how much money did she get from Apple?
Siri was first heard in October 2011. At the time, it was a high-profile feature coming to the iPhone 4S. We are now 12 years later and quite a few actors have taken over Siri’s role in various languages.
So Siri has started to sound different on your iPhone over time. But how much did Apple actually pay the original Siri?
This is how much (or little) Apple paid the original voice of Siri
The name Susan Bennett probably doesn’t sound familiar to you. Yet you may have talked to her at some point, because she was the original voice of Siri.
She no longer does that voice for Apple itself now, but she does still work as a voice actor. In fact, she still performs the role of Siri in several movies such as Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe.
With those jobs, she has probably earned more than at Apple itself. In an interview with CNN, she reveals what she got: absolutely nothing. The group of actors who came after her, however, did get paid.
The extraordinary story of the voice in the iPhone 4S
Still, it is interesting of the actress to hear how Apple came to her. Bennett said her voice was recorded back in 2005, but she did not know what it was for, only that it was messages for a phone. Indeed, at that time the iPhone didn’t even exist.
She had to find out for herself that her voice was being used for Siri: “I got a call in 2011 from another voice actor. Who said to her, ‘We were playing with the new iPhone 4S. Is that you?'”
Susan Bennett was a guest on CNN to talk about the scandal at OpenAI, which turned out not to be a scandal. Scarlett Johansson thought her voice was being used for ChatGPT, but in the end it turned out to be a voice actor who looked a lot like her. That actress probably got much more than Apple paid for the original voice of Siri.
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