Wealth & Money Quote by Cass Elliot

There is a sly double move in Cass Elliot calling $40,000 a week "totally silly": she’s both savoring the win and preemptively disarming the audience’s suspicion that she doesn’t deserve it. Coming from a musician whose career was constantly shadowed by sexist and fatphobic scrutiny, the line reads like a practiced way of staying likable while naming the reality. She can’t simply say, "I’m rich", without inviting backlash; she has to dress it in comedy, a little shrug of incredulity.

The phrase "they're paying me" matters as much as the number. It shifts the focus to the machinery of the industry - promoters, labels, gatekeepers - and frames her as both beneficiary and spectator of a market gone manic. That small grammatical choice lets her claim success while keeping a critical distance from the transactional weirdness of fame: the same people who once tried to squeeze or sideline you will suddenly overpay when you become undeniable.

"$40,000 a week" is also a flex calibrated for the early 1970s, when rock stardom had become a public spectacle of excess and moral panic. Elliot’s "totally silly" punctures that spectacle, turning money into something faintly absurd rather than proof of virtue. It’s an entertainer’s self-defense mechanism and an artist’s wink: if the culture insists on pricing you like a product, you might as well laugh at the price tag while cashing the check.