Have you ever wondered what the net worth of Ellen Degeneres is? Well, the world-famous talk show host has built up a massive fortune over the years.
Ellen has done everything from hosting the Emmy awards to the Oscars and has even starred in films. She is most well known for her talk show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, which has received 171 Daytime Emmy Award nominations and has won 61 Daytime Emmy Awards.
Of those Daytime Emmy Awards, she won four for Outstanding Talk Show and seven for Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment, surpassing the Oprah Winfrey Show’s record, which won nine in total.
The show has also won 17 People’s Choice Awards.
As of May 2023, Ellen Degeneres has a net worth of 500 million dollars. This post shows you exactly how she has made her money.
Early Life
DeGeneres was born and raised in Metairie, Louisiana, on January 26, 1958. She was raised Christian and had an unstable family home. When she was 15, her parents got a divorce.
Her mother remarried shortly after and relocated to Texas with Ellen and her new husband. Her home life didn’t get any easier, and when she was around 16 years old, she was molested by her stepfather.
After completing high school, she moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans, where she majored in communication studies.
It didn’t last long, and after her first semester, she dropped out to do clerical work in a law firm.
Ellen Degeneres Stand Up Comedy
Along with clerical work, Ellen had several other part-time jobs after dropping out of college. She did everything from working at J. C. Penney, waiting tables, painting houses, and bartending. Around this same time, she started doing stand-ups at small clubs and coffee shops.
Much of her comedic pieces were self-deprecating skits centered around her childhood and work experiences. Audiences loved how raw her comedy was and related to her stories.
By the time she was 23, she was already the MC Clyde’s Comedy Club in New Orleans. A few years after that, she began to tour nationally and in 1984 would receive Showtime’s funniest person in America.
Film and Television Career
Throughout the late 80s and 90s, Ellen appeared in a plethora of films and TV shows. Her first regular TV show appearance was a short-lived role on a Fox sitcom called Open House. After that role, she bounced around from sitcom to sitcom until finally getting her own sitcom Ellen in 1984.
Ellen was popular in its first few seasons and was often called the “female Seinfeld.” The show was one of the first shows to have a character come out as gay, which Ellen’s character did in the 1997 episode “The Puppy Episode.”
This episode aired right after Ellen publicly revealed that she was lesbian on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The series returned for a fifth season in 1998 but encountered declining ratings, and ABC canceled it after the fifth season. Ellen would return to tv in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, The Ellen Show.
However, this show was shorter-lived than Ellen and was canceled after 13 episodes.
Her luck would turn around in September 2003, when the daytime television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show launched.
Although there was a lot of competition from other celebrity-hosted talk shows at the time, Ellen’s consistently rose in the Nielsen ratings and would go on to receive international praise.
Ellen Degeneres Net Worth 2023
As of May 2023, Ellen Degeneres has a net worth of 500 million dollars. According to Forbes, Ellen made 87.5 million dollars in 2018 alone.
Most of her wealth comes from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which has won several Emmy Awards. In 2008 Ellen married Portia de Rossi, an Australian actress with a net worth of 50 million dollars. This puts the combined couples’ net worth at well over 400 million dollars.
Key Takeaways
You Don’t Have To Take The Traditional Path
At no point in Ellen’s career did she take the conventional approach. She dropped out of college after just one semester so that she could pursue a career in comedy.
It was a very risky decision and forced her to work multiple part-time jobs and barely make ends meet. Right around the time she started to gain national notoriety, she came out as a lesbian.
This was a controversial issue as there were almost no openly gay celebrities in the 90s, and gay marriage was still illegal.
Nonetheless, Ellen’s ability to be unapologetically herself and pursue her goals regardless of what others might think played a huge role in her success.
Leverage Your Story
Ellen’s comedy comes from her own life. She’s a very raw comic who isn’t afraid to bring her shortcomings to light in a humorous manner.
Although she has sparked her fair share of controversy, her openness has allowed her audience to feel like they really know her and can relate to her on a much deeper level.
Try, Fail, Then Try Again
Ellen is, by all metrics, successful. However, she had her fair share of failures getting to where she is now. She bounced around from sitcom to sitcom throughout the 90s.
She even got her own sitcom twice, and both times they performed poorly. Nevertheless, Ellen never gave up and finally got her big break with The Ellen Degeneres Show.
A reminder to all of you: failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of it.