Jerry Seinfeld's Net Worth Is a Show About Something
Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth is just shy of one billion dollars at a staggering $950 million. Let that sink in for a moment. Like Jerry said on the Seinfeld show, “People don’t turn down money. It’s what separates us from the animals.”
Seinfeld also says that there are four levels of comedy, which are:
Making friends laugh.
Making strangers laugh.
Getting paid to make strangers laugh.
Making people talk like you because it’s so much fun.
I would add a fifth level to this list, which only Seinfeld achieved:
5. Become a billionaire from comedy and laugh all the way to the bank.
The bulk of Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth comes from selling the syndication rights for the television series Seinfeld that Jerry co-owned, co-wrote, and co-produced with his good buddy Larry David.
David would be worth nearly the same amount as Seinfeld, except that David divorced his wife in California and had to give half of his net worth to her, leaving him with a paltry $450 million net worth, when the divorce settled.
Luckily, Seinfeld did not have the same experience as David. Jerry held on to all of his net worth so far. He is still married to his wife Jessica, who he married in 1998 after the Seinfeld series was already a big hit.
Not bad for a guy struggling to pay the rent in the early years as a stand-up comedian. He worked for 15 years as a stand-up comedian on tour before his big success with the Seinfeld television series.
I wonder if he ever thought to himself, when he was broke, that someday he would become a billionaire from his work as a comedian? Probably not, that is just too crazy. It would be like getting a free extra bowl of soup from the Soup Nazi character on the Seinfeld show.
You Can Do Nothing. Or You Can Be Smart about Your Money
The Show About Nothing
One hilarious quote from Jerry Seinfeld is “I am so busy doing nothing that the idea of doing anything, which always leads to something, cuts into the nothing, and then forces me to have to drop everything.”
When the brilliant comedic team of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David pitched the concept of the Seinfeld show to the NBC network they had to explain what the show is about. The answer was “nothing.” That snarky retort, to the thematic question about the show, stuck and the show became known and promoted as the “show about nothing.”
Seinfeld ultimately became known as one of the most successful television series in history. Entertainment Weekly reported in 1997 that the show had the highest-paid cast for the ninth season that aired during 1998.
For that year, the total of the cast salaries, including $1 million per episode for Jerry Seinfeld, was $13 million for the year. The supporting characters played by Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards, each got a salary increase from $150,000 per episode to $600,000 for the final season.
The Seinfeld show held the highest-record cast earnings for a TV series until 2002 when the Friends cast got $1 million each per episode.
NBC made over $200 million per year in gross revenues from Seinfeld so the network could afford to pay these salaries. A thirty-second commercial run during the show cost $550,000. The cost of producing the show was a total of $2 million per episode. NBC paid about $50 million in total for a full season of 20 shows. However, NBC also earned around $150 million in profit for the effort.
The Seinfeld series ran for nine seasons from 1989 to 1998 with the creation of 180 episodes. Jerry Seinfeld reportedly turned down a $100 million offer of $5 million per episode to do another season of the show after the last season aired.
The Early Years That Led To the Creation Of Seinfeld
Jerry Seinfeld’s birth date is April 29, 1954. He hails from Brooklyn, New York. His dad was Hungarian and his mom was Syrian. Both were raised as Jewish and taught this religion to their son.
Seinfeld’s family moved to the Long Island area of upstate New York. He grew up in the community of Massapequa and went to Massapequa High School. When he was 16 years old, he went to Israel to volunteer at a kibbutz called Sa’ar. A kibbutz is a farm cooperative.
When he graduated from high school, he got a degree from Queens College in communication and theater.
He decided he wanted to try his luck at being a stand-up comedian and started appearing on open mic nights in New York clubs. In 1980, he landed a role on the sitcom Benson but lost this job shortly thereafter.
He got a huge break in 1981 with an invitation to appear on The Tonight Show. Seinfeld’s early appearances on national television are very funny because he looks so dorky with bright white horse teeth. Yet, Johnny Carson liked him and invited him back many times. Seinfeld’s reputation grew over the next seven years from his work touring and performing in clubs in New York and Los Angeles.
He met Larry David at a birthday party of a mutual friend who was also a comedian. David gave some jokes as a birthday gift but the woman celebrating her birthday was too drunk to read them. Instead, Seinfeld read them out loud. They were hilarious. The material written by Larry David was exceptional. It was immediately clear to both men that they should team up to work together, which they did.
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In 1998, David and Seinfeld created a television show together that they called The Seinfeld Chronicles, which had its title shortened to just Seinfeld later. NBC put it on as a filler show in the dead of summer. The audience reaction was tepid at first.
They lucked out because Seinfeld ran right after the already popular comedy series of Cheers. Many of the Cheers viewers watched Seinfeld when they did not change the channel. The Seinfeld show built up a strong audience of its own. The rest is history.
Larry David was a writer and co-producer for the show along with Jerry Seinfeld who co-produced and starred in the show. Both of them owned an equal portion of the show, which ultimately created their immense personal wealth.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Career Highlights
Here are some milestones that helped Seinfeld become popular and build up Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth.
First big break with a role in the sitcom Benson (1979).
First appearance on The Tonight Show (1981).
Created The Seinfeld Chronicles (1988), which became the hit series Seinfeld (1989 to 1998).
Published a comedy book Seinlanguage (1993).
Appeared on The Larry Sanders Show (1993-1998).
Guest appearance in Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is a show produced by Larry David (2004).
He was the first guest to appear on the first episode of The Jay Leno Show (2009).
Executive producer and star of the web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012).
Jerry Seinfeld’s Family Life
Seinfeld dated Shoshanna Lonstein for four years. She was 17 years old when he met her, and he was 38. It was scandalous.
Then, he met and fell in love with Jessica Sklar in 1998, right after she married the theater producer Eric Nederlander. Skalar wanted Seinfeld so much that she broke up with her new husband only three weeks after her marriage. Their divorce was final four months later paving the way for Seinfeld to marry her.
Jerry and Jessica lived together for a year and then married. They were together ever since and have three children together.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Car Collection
Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth is enhanced by his extensive car collection. He has a huge collection of Porsches. Of the more than 150 vehicles in his car collection, about a third of them are Porsches. He has so many collectible cars that he kept them in a massive hangar at the Santa Monica, California airport in Los Angeles.
He stored his cars in Los Angeles until he had time to build a custom garage for $500,000 to hold them on a piece of NYC property that he bought in 2002 for $1.4 million. This garage is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Parking in New York City is impossible. That is unless you own a parking garage with 150 cars of yours in it.
In 2007, he bought a warehouse located at the Santa Monica airport for $4.5 million just to keep the cars he wanted available for him to use in California. His car collection adds many millions to Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Real Estate
Jerry Seinfeld’s net worth also has help from his real estate holdings. In 2000, he bought three pieces of adjacent property for a total of $32 million to create a 12-acre estate on the ocean in the Hamptons. Then he spent many millions renovating the property and built a brand-new house with a 22-car garage. He also had a private baseball field installed on the back of the property.
In 2005, Seinfeld bought a townhouse in New York City for $4 million. His main home is the entire 19th floor in a building that overlooks Central Park. Seinfeld did so many extended renovations for properties he owns in Upper Westside cooperative buildings in New York that they created a new rule to prevent such lengthy projects, which they now call “The Seinfeld Law.”
In 2007, he bought a 27-acre estate in Telluride, Colorado for $10 million, which he listed for sale in 2011 for $18.3 million.
In 2011, he bought a modest home in Vermont located on a lake that was the childhood home of his wife Jessica and gave it to her as a surprise gift.
Conclusion
It pays to be a comedian, as long as you make the biggest comedy hit television series of all time and own a piece of the show. For all those aspiring stand-up comedians who are lucky if they earn beer and food money, just remember that there is the chance that a show about nothing with a guy who likes to do nothing can happen. This is what made Jerry Seinfeld nearly a billionaire.