Top 10 Richest TV Personalities
10. Daymond John
Net Worth – $300 million
Daymond Garfield John is an American businessman, investor, personality of television, author, and speaker of motivation. He is best known as FUBU ‘s founder, president, and CEO, and appears as an investor on the Shark Tank series of ABC reality television. John is founding The Shark Party, based in New York City.
Wool ski hats were popular with their tops tied to the fishing line and John found that they were being sold for $20 which he considered to be overpriced. He and his neighbor next door went home and sewed about 90 hats. They sold their handmade hats at the corner of Jamaica Avenue for $10 each, and in 1992 made $800 in a single day. They began selling screen-printed T-shirts after getting the caps. They sold on consignment and at large events across the North-East to enter into the market. John kept a full-time job at Red Lobster to make ends meet, working in between shifts on the FUBU company.
9. Kathy Hilton
Net Worth – $300 million
An American actress, socialite, fashion designer and philanthropist, Kathy Hilton (born Kathleen Elizabeth Avanzino, later Richards; 13 March 1959). She’s the mother of socialite Paris Hilton, and Nicky Hilton, fashion designer.
Hilton started to work as an actress in 1968, and retired in 1979. Notable appearances include Nanny and the Professor, Bewitched, Family Affair, Happy Days, The Rockford Files, and movie appearances with Captain Midnight include The Dark and On The Air Live. She made a cameo appearance as herself in the May 13, 2008 episode of The Young and the Restless.
8. Jamie Oliver
Net Worth – $300 million
Born and raised in Clavering, Essex, he was trained as a pastry chef in London before joining Neal Street restaurant of Antonio Carluccio. Patricia Llewellyn of Optomen discovered him while working as a sub-chef at the River Café; and in 1999 the BBC aired his television series, The Naked Chef. This was followed by a first cook book, which was a bestseller for UK No. 1. His television work included a documentary, Jamie’s Kitchen, which won him an invitation to visit 11 Downing Street from Prime Minister Tony Blair.
He launched a campaign in 2005, Feed Me Better, to introduce schoolchildren to healthy foods, which the government later endorsed. He was the owner of Jamie Oliver Restaurant Company, a restaurant chain, which opened its first restaurant, Jamie’s Italian, in Oxford in 2008. In May 2019 the chain entered administration.
7. Ryan Seacrest
Net Worth – $330 million
From 2004 to 2013, and again in 2016, Seacrest received Emmy Award nominations for American Idol. He won an Emmy in 2010 to produce Jamie Oliver ‘s Food Revolution, and was again nominated in 2012. In 2018, Seacrest won Live nominations in Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment with Kelly and Ryan as well as Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host.
Seacrest hosted the first season of the Radical Outdoor Challenge on ESPN in 1993. He also hosted three children’s game shows, from 1994 to 1996 Gladiators 2000 (a television show spinoff, American Gladiators), in 1995 Wild Animal Games, and in 1997 Select. Seacrest starred as host of the Lover’s Lane fictional game show on Beverly Hills, 90210 in “The Final Evidence” Seacrest was host of The NBC Saturday Night Movie during the fall and winter of 2000. He offered trivia on the film during commercial breaks, and a chance to win prizes by answering online on NBCi.
6. Ellen DeGeneres
Net Worth – $330 million
Her stand-up career began in the early 1980s and included an appearance on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show Starring in 1986. DeGeneres starred as a film actress in Mr. Wrong (1996), EDtv (1999), and The Love Letter (1999) and provided Dory ‘s voice in the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016); for Nemo, she was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time an actress has won a Saturn Award for a voice performance. For its ninth season, she was a judge on American Idol in 2010.
She appeared in two tv sitcoms, Ellen between 1994 and 1998 and The Ellen Show between 2001 and 2002. She came out as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show during the fourth season of Ellen in 1997. Her character, Ellen Morgan, also came out to a Winfrey-played therapist, and the series continued to explore various LGBT problems, including the coming-out process. In 2008 she married Portia de Rossi, her longtime girlfriend.
5. David Letterman
Net Worth – $400 million
David Michael Letterman is a host, comedian, journalist, and producer on American television. He hosted 33 years of late-night television talk shows, beginning with Late Night debut with David Letterman on NBC on 1 February 1982, and ending with Late Show broadcast with David Letterman on CBS on 20 May 2015. In total, Letterman hosted 6,080 Late Night and Late Show episodes, surpassing his friend and mentor Johnny Carson as America’s longest-served late night talk show host in television history. Letterman was ranked 45th on the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time by TV Guide in 1996.
Letterman grew up on the north side of Indianapolis, around 12 miles from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in the Broad Ripple area. He enjoyed collecting model cars, among them racers. In 2000, he told an Esquire interviewer that while growing up he respected the ability of his father to tell jokes and be the party’s life. At age 36, when David was a young boy, Harry Joseph Letterman survived a heart attack. With Letterman the fear of losing his father was constant as he grew up.
4. Dr. Phil McGraw
Net Worth – $440 million
Phillip Calvin McGraw, also known as Dr. Phil, is an American TV personality, author, and former psychologist who is the host of Dr. Phil’s TV show. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology but he does not practice psychology anymore. McGraw first gained celebrity status in the late 1990s with appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Raised in the South Central United States, McGraw played college football for Tulsa University and Midwestern State University, where he received a Bachelor of Psychological Arts degree. He then received a Master of Arts in Experimental Psychology from the University of North Texas and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. For several years he started working in private practice, while also holding large seminars for patients.
3. Simon Cowell
Net Worth – $600 million
Following some success as a record producer, talent scout and consultant in the UK music industry in the 1980s and 1990s, Cowell came to public attention in 2001 as a judge on Pop Idol, a show which he and his creator Simon Fuller successfully introduced to Entertainment Claudia Rosencrantz’s ITV Controller. Subsequently, Cowell created The X Factor (2004), and Got Talent (2006), shows sold around the world. Time named Cowell as one of the world’s top 100 most influential people in 2004 and 2010.
As a television music and talent show judge, Cowell frequently makes frank and divisive remarks including threats and wisecracks towards performers and their singing skills. He combines activities both in the television industry and the music industry. Cowell has produced and promoted successful singles and albums for numerous recording acts which he has signed and recorded under his wing, including Little Mix, James Arthur, Labrinth, Leona Lewis, Fifth Harmony, Il Divo, Olly Murs, Noah Cyrus, Cher Lloyd, Fleur East and Susan Boyle.
2. Silvio Santos
Net Worth – $1.3 billion
Senor Abravanel is a Brazilian entrepreneur, media tycoon and television host, professionally known as Silvio Santos. He is the owner of holdings which include SBT, the country’s second-largest TV network. Its net worth in 2013 was US$ 1.3 billion. He is the presenter of Brazil’s second oldest program: Silvio Santos (1963–present) programme.
He is also the country’s only celebrity on the Forbes magazine’s Millionaires list. The magazine also reports that “there is no one in Brazil more established than Silvio Santos.
Senor Abravanel is the son of Jewish Sephardic immigrants raised within the Ottoman Empire. His father, Alberto Abravanel, was born in 1897 at Thessalonica (today Greece), and his mother, Rebecca Caro, was born in 1907 in Smyrna (today Turkey). Both died in Rio de Janeiro (in 1976 and 1989 respectively) and are buried side by side in Rio de Janeiro city’s Jewish Cemetery at Caju.
1. Oprah Winfrey
Net Worth – $4.2 billion
Winfrey was born to a teenage single mother in rural Mississippi, and later raised in downtown Milwaukee. She has claimed that during her childhood and early teens she was molested and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent out to live with the man she is calling her father, Vernon Winfrey, a Tennessee barber, and landed a job on the radio while still in high school.
Credited to create a more intimate, confessional form of media communication, Winfrey popularized and revolutionized the Phil Donahue pioneered tabloid talk show genre. Through this medium, Winfrey broke the taboos of the 20th century and enabled LGBT people to join the mainstream through appearances on television. She was inducted to the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994.
