Living large! Ellen DeGeneres has acquired a substantial fortune thanks to her hit daytime show — which ran for 19 seasons and ended in 2022 — as well as other money-making endeavors.
What Is Ellen DeGeneres’ Net Worth?
Her fortune is estimated to be $500 million, according to CelebrityNetworth.com. Ellen’s income got a huge boost from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she took home an annual salary of $75 million in the show’s later years.
How Does Ellen DeGeneres Make Money?
More than half of Ellen’s earnings came from her feel-good program. She received about 60 percent of profits from advertising, carrying fee and product placement profits, according to Forbes. After premiering in 2003 and featuring tons of celebrities, The Ellen DeGeneres Show aired over 3,000 episodes.
Although her talk show has her set for life, Ellen brings home additional paychecks for executive producing several shows including Little Big Shots and Green Eggs and Ham. In her early career, she was known for her standup, and she returned to comedy in 2018 for a Netflix special titled Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable, earning $20 million. She also launched her own lifestyle brand ED in 2015, carrying everything from women’s apparel to home goods and pet supplies. Furthermore, she has worked as a spokesperson for major brands such as CoverGirl and American Express.
Ellen voiced Dory in Finding Nemo prior to becoming a success on her talk show. She claims she lost several jobs after coming out as gay in 1997, and as a result, she reportedly only made $75,000 for three years of work on the project.
She reprised her role in 2016 for Finding Dory, but her total paycheck from the film has not been disclosed. Considering the movie brought in over a billion dollars in revenue, it’s safe to say Ellen made out well.
After Ellen’s talk show ended in 2022, she admitted that she went into isolation and worried that she had become a universally disliked person. However, just two years later she returned with a comedy special on Netflix.
“To answer the questions everyone is asking me — Yes, I’m going to talk about it,” Ellen said in a press release. “Yes, this is my last special. Yes, Portia [de Rossi] really is that pretty in real life.”
She later confirmed this was going to be her final moment in the spotlight.
“This is the last time you’re going to see me,” she said, per SFGate. “After my Netflix special, I’m done.”
Ellen Has a Wide Real Estate Portfolio
In addition to her career in entertainment, Ellen enjoys flipping homes with her wife, Portia. Together, the couple has bought and sold over 20 homes since 2003. Throughout the years, she has done business with many famous faces. In 2008, she sold her home to Ryan Seacrest for $37 million. In 2019, she bought Adam Levine’s Beverly Hills home for $45 million.
The couple closed on the most expensive real estate deal to date in Santa Barbara County on December 13, 2022. Ellen and Portia paid $70 million for two adjacent parcels of land in Carpinteria that total 10 acres. One features a 3.4-acre plot with a Tuscan farmhouse-style mansion that cost $41.7 million, while the neighboring 6.6-acre lot that includes a lake sold for $28.2 million, according to a report from Dirt.
Ellen vowed to have fun with her money after living on a tight budget for most of her upbringing. “I am always going to just get what I want, I’m going to do what I want. Because I know there is an abundance and I will always have enough,” she said on her show in 2018. “That’s how I live my life.”
