You may be wondering about Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth after hearing about her Ellen Show decision, and we’re here to fill you in on the details. As the host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show for almost two decades, Ellen has made bank from her multi-million-dollar salary and emerged as one of the richest women on television. Even with the news of her plans to cancel her talk show, it’s safe to say that her net worth will continue to thrive. In fact, Ellen has made so much money from her career (which includes comedy specials, books, and even a home decor line) that she likely could survive anything—even a series cancelation.
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What is Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth?
Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth is estimated to be $500 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Of course, her net worth may fluctuate considering how much she earns each year from her books, comedy specials and lifestyle brands, and following the cancelation of her long-running talk show.
Though it’s hard to imagine the comedian as anything but a millionaire, Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth wasn’t always as high as it is now. In fact, the comic told her audience in a 2018 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show that her current income is astronomically more than what she grew up with. “I was poor growing up,” she said at the time.
How much did Ellen DeGeneres make from Ellen?
So, so much. It should come as no surprise that most of Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth comes from her massive talk show earnings. In fact, her salary is almost double the net worth of some of the Kardashian sisters. According to a 2020 report by Variety, Ellen earns “more than $50 million per year from her Telepictures deal,” and that includes “about 60 percent of advertising, carrying fee, and product placement profits,” on her show, reports Business Insider.
While her exact salary is unclear, Forbes lists her yearly earnings as anywhere up to $84 million. Aside from Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth also includes income that she makes from her with work at her own production company, A Very Good Production, and endorsement deals with brands ranging from American Express to JCPenney.
In a 2011 interview with Good Housekeeping, Ellen explained how her wealth now is different than how she was raised. “We never owned a house when I was growing up,” she said.“We rented, and we moved about every two years, just far enough to have to start at a new school. My mother was a real estate agent for a little while, so I was always looking at houses with her. We couldn’t afford to buy one, so it was a frustrating thing as a kid. You’re imagining, ‘This is going to be my room,’ and then it was like, ‘Oh, we can’t afford it.’”
Let’s look back on her career: Before she was a talk show host, Ellen made a name for herself as a stand-up comedian in the ’80s. One of her most memorable gigs was an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1986. Ellen’s big break on TV came in the ’90s when she starred as the lead of her own sitcom, Ellen, which ran from 1994 to 1998. In 1997, during the fourth season of Ellen, Ellen came out as a lesbian in an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, making her one of the first openly gay actors to star as the lead of a TV show. Her character, Ellen Morgan, also came out to her therapist around the same time.
Her career as a TV host started in 2003 when The Ellen DeGeneres Show premiered on NBC. After that, Ellen’s career exploded. She provided the voice for Dory in 2003’s Finding Nemo and its 2016 sequel, Finding Dory. She had a short stint as a judge on American Idol in 2010. She’s hosted the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys (and won a few herself.) But of course, Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth doesn’t only include her on-air career. The comedian has also made big bucks as a founder for several popular businesses. In 2015, she launched her lifestyle brand, ED by Ellen DeGeneres, which includes clothes, shoes, and pet, baby and home items. In 2018, she partnered with Walmart for the fashion brand EV1, which is meant to be a low-cost alternative to ED by Ellen DeGeneres. She’s also released several books, including memoirs My Point…And I Do Have One, The Funny Thing Is…, Seriously…I’m Kidding and lifestyle book Home.
In Lisa Iannucci’s 2008 book, Ellen DeGeneres: A Biography, the author also wrote about how the comedian used to do a bunch of side gigs to make cash before Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth was what it is today. Ianucci wrote that Ellen used to “sold clothes at the Merry-Go-Round chain store at the Lakeside Shopping Center, served food, painted houses, worked at a car wash, bar-tended, wrapped gifts…sold Hoover vacuums and shucked oysters” when she was younger to support herself. The Ellen in the biography sounds far from the Ellen we know today. So while Ellen DeGeneres’ net worth may be in the multi-millions now, that wasn’t always the case.
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