Jerry Seinfeld Net Worth

• Earned a total of $100,000 for the first season of “Seinfeld”
• Was earning $1m per episode by season 9
• He was the first TV actor to earn $1m per episode
• Jerry earned $60 million in base salary from his show
• Turned down $5m per episode to do one more season
• That would have been $100 million
• Owns 15% of his show’s backend equity
• Earns $40-50m per year from syndication and other royalties
• Owns over 150 cars
• Car collection is likely worth north of $50 million
• Owns a 12-acre oceanfront Hamptons estate
• Their Hamptons house is worth $70-100 million

Early Life

Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 29, 1954. He was raised in Massapequa, New York. He spent two years at the State University of New York at Oswego. Seinfeld transferred to Queens College during his second year and received a degree in communications and drama. While at Queens College, he developed an interest in stand-up comedy and would occasionally perform at open-mic evenings.

Jerry spent nearly 15 years as a stand-up comedian after college before hitting the television jackpot. He was a successful touring comedian when he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in May 1981. This appearance led to numerous subsequent appearances on The Tonight Show and other late-night shows such as Late Night with David Letterman.

Creating “Seinfeld”

Jerry teamed up with Larry David, a former SNL writer, in 1989 to create a television pilot for NBC called “The Seinfeld Chronicles.” The renamed “Seinfeld” eventually aired 180 episodes over nine seasons and is now regarded as one of the best shows of all time. It is also one of the most profitable shows in television history, with over $4 billion in revenue to date.

Jerry’s Seinfeld Salary

During the show’s five-episode inaugural season, Jerry earned $20,000 per episode, for a total of $100,000. For the second and third seasons, his per-episode pay was quadrupled to $40,000, for a total of $3.5 million. Jerry got $100,000 for each episode for seasons 4, 5, and 6, a total of 70 episodes. That works up to $7 million. Jerry’s per-episode compensation was increased to $500 thousand for seasons 7 and 8, a total of 46 episodes. This amounts to $23 million. Jerry got $1 million per episode in Season 9, for a total of $24 million for the season (approximately $38 million after inflation). Moreover, he was the first television actor to earn a million dollars per episode.

A record that was immediately broken when Tim Allen was paid $1.25 million for his services on Home Improvement the following year.

When it comes to compensation alone, Jerry made little under $60 million. After adjusting for inflation, around the same as nearly $100 million.

NBC was desperate for Jerry to return for a tenth season. According to reports, they offered him $5 million per episode to produce one more season. That would have netted the season $100 million. If Jerry had been paid $5 million per episode, it would have been the highest per-episode fee ever paid to a television actor, more than doubling Charlie Sheen’s $1.8 million at the peak of Two and a Half Men.

Syndication Earnings

Jerry and Larry David each owned 7.5% of the show’s backend equity points from the beginning. When Jerry and Larry were negotiating new terms with NBC at the height of the show’s success, they were able to double their ownership stake to 15% apiece. When the show was initially sold into syndication in 1998, it brought in $1.7 billion. Jerry and Larry each had a windfall of $255 million as a result of this. Jerry and Larry have earned at least $800 million from Seinfeld from salary, DVD, merchandise, and syndication arrangements as of this writing. Larry’s Net Worth was tragically sliced in half when he divorced Laurie Lennard in 2007.

Jerry and Larry each earned $27 million when Seinfeld was sold to Hulu for $180 million in 2015. They generate $40-50 million per year from syndication revenues and program royalties. Jerry Seinfeld earned $60 million between June 2017 and June 2018. He earned $40 million between June 2018 and June 2019.

Larry and Jerry earned $75 million when Seinfeld was sold to Netflix for $500 million in September 2019.

Personal Life

Jerry dated Shoshanna Lonstein for four years, beginning when she was 17 and still in high school. He was 38. Jerry met Jessica Sklar at a sports club in 1998, just a few months before she was to marry theater producer Eric Nederlander. Sklar moved in with Jerry and divorced her husband three weeks after returning from her honeymoon. Only four months after the wedding, the spouse filed for divorce. A year later, Jerry and Jessica married and have been together ever since. They are the parents of three children.

Car Collection

Jerry is one of the world’s largest individual collectors of Porsches. Jerry owns over 150 vehicles, 45 of which are Porsches. He stored his collection Jerry in a hangar at the Santa Monica airport for several years while living in Los Angeles to film Seinfeld. Jerry paid $1.4 million for a property on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 2002. He then spent another $500 thousand building a garage large enough to house dozens of cars.

Real Estate

East Hampton: Jerry and Jessica spent $32 million in three deals in 2000 to build a 12-acre seaside estate in East Hampton, New York. Billy Joel was one of the buyers. They allegedly then spent several million dollars on upgrades, including the construction of a big new house on the property and the addition of a private baseball diamond in the back (Jerry is a massive Mets fan). The property in the Hamptons boasts a 22-car garage.

Manhattan: The Seinfelds spent $4 million on a New York City townhouse in 2005. Their primary residence in New York is the full 19th-story of building overlooking Central Park. He allegedly spent so much time refurbishing that Upper West Side co-op boards unanimously adopted new rules prohibiting lengthy renovations. It’s known as the “Seinfeld Law.”

Telluride: The couple paid $7.55 million for a 27-acre residence in Telluride, Colorado, in 2007. They spent $2.3 million for a different 17-acre nearby property a year later.

In 2011, they placed the major property for sale for $18.3 million. They took the listing down for several years before re-listing it in March 2021 for $14.95 million. Simultaneously, they advertised the 17-acre adjacent property, which has a four-bedroom home, for $2.775 million.

The primary 27-acre property was sold for $14 million in February 2022.

Other: Jerry invested $4.5 million in buying storage near Santa Monica Airport in 2007, ostensibly to hold cars he still owns on the West Coast. In 2011, they purchased a modest lake house in Vermont near Jessica’s childhood home.