The Richest Real Housewives Revealed

Oh, the Real Housewives. The drama never stops, and the money seems unending — at least, if you happen to protect your assets by filing for bankruptcy, a patented Housewives move. The lifestyles of our favorite Bravolebrities are so expensive that even Bethenney Frankel questioned when her fellow Housewives were going to find themselves in financial ruin (for some, it was just an indictment away).

As much as we love watching glamorous middle aged women dump drinks on each other during vacations no human would realistically take unless they were contractually forced, the truth is that some Housewives need that paycheck more than others. Sure, they're all rich, but some are rich rich. Mostly, the richest Housewives aren't wasting their efforts threatening their castmates with shards of glass and pushing their frenemies' husbands into pools. They're working on their side hustles.

Some Housewives were born into luxury, but the majority of the most financially elite worked their way up one pair of Louboutins at a time. A salary from Bravo is nothing when you've got multi millions.

Dorinda Medley managed to brush elbows with royalty long before LuAnn de Lesseps ever showed up to her Halloween party in a very questionable Diana Ross costume. According to the New York Post, the RHONY star launched a cashmere company in London, where she moved after marrying a Scotsman in the late '80s. Among her clients was Princess Diana. Does it get any better for a British company?

Medley's reported $20 million net worth was certainly bolstered by her cashmere company's success. Diana's favs tended to fly off the shelves, but it's also safe to say that marrying a financier probably doesn't hurt your bank account either. The reality star fell for hedge fund adviser, political speechwriter, and former George Soros partner Richard Medley after coming back to New York following her divorce and picking up a new career as a real estate broker, according to the New York Post. They were married until Richard passed away in 2011, and Dorinda joined up with The Real Housewives of New York a few years later.

So, what does a reality star with a $20 mil in the bank do to relax from her series' epic drama? According to Entertainment Tonight, when Dorinda isn't in the Big Apple, she can be found at a modest, quaint property in the Berkshires called Blue Stone Manor. This 18-acre plot houses a nine-bedroom, 11-bathroom mansion. The fish room alone reportedly cost $250,000 to renovate.

Money can't buy you class, but if it could, LuAnn de Lesseps would be able to buy a ton of it. The star has a reported $25 million net worth, and that would seem like a lot if you forget she was once actual royalty. According to Us Weekly, the Real Housewives of New York star split from her former husband Count Alexandre de Lesseps in 2009 after 16 years of marriage.

The count's estimated net worth is a reported $50 million, so LuAnn probably did get a decent chunk of change in the divorce, but it wasn't enough to cause any major strain. The pair remain close enough that Alexandre reportedly joked about walking her down the aisle when she married businessman Tom D'Agostino in 2016. That seven-month marriage resulted in the loss of her royal title.

Though LuAnn may not be actual royalty, she is TV royalty, and she apparently wants to be treated as such. According to Radar Online, she's vying to be the highest paid RHONY cast member and seeking $3.5 million per season from Bravo. That wouldn't be chump change for a former nurse who managed to somehow become a model in Milan and New York and host an Italian talk show, according to Vulture. These days, the former countess is making class a personal brand with her cabaret act and disorderly conduct arrest. Money can, at least, buy you bail.

Bethenny Frankel may not be the richest Housewife with a reported $25 million net worth, but she's resting on a legitimate Skinnygirl empire. According to Money, the star rose out from under $20,000 in credit card debt and managed to sell her line of cocktails for a reported $100 million in 2011 — and she still wears T.J. Maxx sweatpants.

Before her Skinnygirl success, Frankel tried her hand at random gigs. She served as a production assistant on Saved by the Bell, was Paris Hilton's mother's personal assistant, sold pashminas at house parties, and hawked healthy cookies with Bethenny Bakes. None of this stuff led to big bucks. Per her profile on Money, there was a time when Frankel could barely afford her New York City rent. "Until my late thirties, everything was just an anxiety and a struggle," she said, adding "It's like the way people feel when they eat something and they don't feel good about it."

That all changed when she was able to transform a spot on The Apprentice into a starring role on The Real Housewives of New York. She has since become a guest-investor on Shark Tank – the mark of a true entrepreneur — and expanded Skinnygirl into a global lifestyle brand with products like microwave popcorn, denim, candles, shapewear, skincare, salad dressing, and coffee. According to Variety, the star exited the Real Housewives in 2019 in favor of a development deal with MGM Television and Mark Burnett.

Kandi Burruss is no scrub when it comes to her career, and she's got the Grammy to prove it. The star won the coveted prize (along with two ASCAP Awards) for penning TLC's mega-hit "No Scrubs." According to Forbes, the RHOA star has also worked with acts like Pink, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey, which undoubtedly contributed to her reported $30 million net worth. But songwriting isn't her only lucrative gig. 

According to Love B Scott, the former Xscape member is the highest-paid Atlanta housewife and makes just over $100,000 per episode of the series. She also landed a short-lived spin-off called The Kandi Factory and appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2019. Forbes reports that the star is juggling more than seven different active ventures including her cosmetics line Kandi Koated Cosmetics and adult toy range Bedroom Kandi.

"Everything is a gamble," Burruss told Forbes," adding, "Sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board and figure out another way to make things work out."

Things really seem to have worked out for the star. Burruss' success has allowed her to score a massive 7-bedroom mansion in Atlanta with an elevator and indoor pool. This thing is big enough to hide an alleged sex dungeon if we're going to pretend that Phaedra Parks' salacious rumor was actually true. In truth, that dungeon is probably just a private spa because, yes, Burruss is that fancy.

Tinsley Mortimer doesn't need to watch Gossip Girl because she's lived it. The star was a prominent New York City socialite, and it seems like she's always had wealth. According to her father, George Mercer, who spoke to the New York Daily News, she was "raised in the biggest home in central Virginia." They even had a butler, but it's not exactly clear how much of her reported $35 million net worth is from her family, her former husband, or her hustles.

According to the The New York Times, Tinsley's ex-husband Topper Mortimer, who she reportedly met at boarding school and wed in 2002, is part of the Wall Street set. He worked at a hedge fund, but his real family wealth probably came from his great grandfather Henry Morgan Tilford. Tilford was the president of Standard Oil and somehow related to John Jay, the first chief justice of the US. That's nothing compared to Tisley's relative, Thomas Jefferson. Tinsley's father made this abundantly clear when he told the New York Daily News that they "have a lot more money than the Mortimers. They only got that Standard Oil by marriage. They're Yorkshire. We're London." Okay. 

Regardless of her father's remarks, Tinsley is totally loaded — divorce and all. In addition to family wealth, the star is a publicist and one of Dior's beauty ambassadors. She also has a line of handbags, according to her website.

Jill Zarin didn't get her reported $35 million net worth simply by appearing on The Housewives of New York. According to an interview in Forbes, she was already a society woman when Bravo came knocking, and when the hustle calls, you have to answer. Zarin is an entrepreneur by trade. One of the main reasons she agreed to appear on the series in the first place was to promote her family business, Zarin Fabric Warehouse. Even though they've been "selling discount drapery and upholstery fabric and hardware" since 1936, Bravo's visibility helped boost sales, and Zarin parlayed the fame into a personal empire.

"If you were driven, smart and creative you had a chance to create your own brand and integrate into the reality show while no one was really paying attention," she told Forbes. "The producers needed story lines and we were able to 'sell' them that this was our reality."

With knowledge of the shapewear space from her tenure as president of Jockey Hosiery, Zarin launched Skweez Couture. She also launched her jewelry line Jill Zarin Jewelry and a rug line. Her shapewear and jewelry are sold in major department stores like Lord and Taylor and Macy's, but Zarin still maintained to Forbes that her professional and financial success wouldn't have been possible if The Housewives wasn't a hit.

Heather Dubrow left The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2016, but she remains the richest cast member of the bunch. Weirdly enough, her job as a Bravolebrity might be the smallest piece of the pie when it comes to her reported $40 million net worth. According to Radar Online, the star only made $30,000 per season of RHOC when she joined in 2012, and it's not clear how much that increased towards the end of her run. Nonetheless, she has plenty of other acting and reality credits to balance her bank book out, including larger roles on TV series like Sequestered and That's Life.

Both Heather and her husband Terry Durbow have a storied career in reality TV. While she appeared on Bravo and hosted Botched: Post-Op alongside her husband, Terry is at least partially responsible for the early aughts insanity that was The Swan. The series was so twisted that The New Yorker once deemed it "the most sadistic reality series of the decade." His work on Botched is basically like going to church when you compare it to allegedly mentally scarring reality TV contestants with extreme plastic surgery. Oh yeah, did we mention that Terry is a famous plastic surgeon and author? That probably significantly pads their bank accounts.

Like most of the Housewives, Heather also has a bunch of side-hustles. She's got a champagne, a skincare line, a podcast, and she co-authored a book with her husband.

You might know Yolanda Hadid from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or as the mother of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid, whose impressive work landed them both a spot on Forbes' list of 2017's highest paid models. It's enough success to make us forget that the RHOBH star didn't always live a life of luxury. According to Money, Yolanda had basically nothing when she moved to New York after being signed to Ford Models.

"I remember my mom gave me 100 guilders, which was a lot of money for where I came from, and when I exchanged it, I think I ended up with like $55 dollars in my pocket," she said (via Money).

Yolanda's modeling work helped her amass an impressive reported net worth of $45 million, but her divorces certainly padded her bank account. In 2003, she split from real estate mogul Mohamed Hadid, who was reportedly worth $400 million at one point. According to Radar Online, their divorce settlement awarded her a couple multi-million dollar properties, two luxury cars, several bank accounts, "an Arabian horse," a $3.6 million payment, and $40,000 a month in combined child and spousal support. When she married and divorced 16-time Grammy winning producer David Foster, Yolanda also received a "generous" settlement, but it wasn't "enough to retire" according to TMZ. Thankfully, she's a self-made woman. According to Celebrity Net Worth, she was making $100,000 per episode before leaving RHOBH in 2016. 

At the time, Camille Grammer's divorce from Cheers star Kesley Grammer rocked The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Ultimately, she ended up walking away with a hefty chunk of change (which seems like a fair deal for having to read about her husband's affair in the tabloids). According to Entertainment Tonight, the star got $30 million in the divorce settlement after "fighting for her assets." The sum, which she defended during the Season 9 reunion, clearly makes up the bulk of her reported $50 million net worth.

"I was married for 13 years. That's a long time," she said during the reunion. "I just felt that, you know, working, and I worked hard. I just didn't sit back, buying fancy clothes and shoving bonbons in my face. I mean, I worked hard."

According to People, Camille has since remarried attorney David C. Meyer, which probably added quite a bit to her fortune. She also exited The Real Housewives because, according to a now-deleted series of tweets, she "wasn't asked back." Luckily, the star undoubtedly has enough cash to retire from TV for good and can focus her efforts on her job as co-chair of the National Race to End Women's Cancer.

Carole Radziwill isn't just a real housewife and reality star — she's an actual princess. According to the Los Angeles Times, her late husband was the son of Polish prince Stanislas Albert Radziwill. Now that Countess LuAnn gave up her title for a short-lived marriage, Carole is the only royal member of The Housewives of New York, but you'd never know it.

Carole prefers to focus on her esteemed career as a journalist rather than the fact that she married into Polish and American royalty (okay, we don't have a monarchy in the States, but her late husband's aunt was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The Kennedys are about as close to royalty as Americans can get). She also dated George Clooney (He's "a nine" in bed, in case you were wondering). She also won three Emmys for her groundbreaking reporting, and is an accomplished author with a New York Times best-seller under her belt, according to her website.

Carole's net worth is an enormous $50 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, but that's probably going to increase now that she's quit RHONY to refocus on journalism and producing. According to Deadline, she inked a deal with Verve and is creating scripted and unscripted projects "over multiple platforms." As of a February 2019 Daily Mail report, the star was working on her third book, a follow-up to her best-selling memoir What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love.

As of this writing, Dorit Kemsley is vying to steal the crown of highest-paid Housewife, however, the star has hit a couple financial snags that might make her reported $50 million net worth a little bit outdated. Do assets count if they're frozen?

Kemsley likely collected a great deal of her net worth through her husband Paul Kemsley (PK, for those used to hearing it shouted in Dorit's vaguely British accent). The duo run a talent agency called Nixxi Entertainment, which represents pop icon Boy George (he was living with the couple as of 2017, but it's unclear if he was paying rent). According to Deadline, PK is producing a feature film based on George's life, but there's not really a whole lot else about PK's exact line of work on the Internet. It seems rather expansive, but in an Instagram post, he claimed he's an entrepreneur, who's job is to "create," "take risks" and "live [his] passion."

All the creating and risk-taking did eventually take a toll. The same year TMZ reported that Dorit was sued by her former business partner over her swimwear line, The Blast claimed that PK was missing payments on his $3.6 million casino marker from the Bellagio Hotel and Casino. As of February 2019, PK still reportedly owed $1.7 million. In yet another financial beef, PK allegedly owed an additional $1.2 million on a separate unpaid loan, however, Us Weekly reported that both that issue and Dorit's swimwear line litigations were settled by November 2019. 

Lisa Vanderpump wasn't just the richest cast member on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she's the richest Housewife of the franchise — and much like her bank account, the star typically rises above the catty drama that plagues her Housewife underlings. Basically, you won't ever see her flip a table, and if someone does, she probably won't leak the story to Radar Online (lest we forget Puppygate).

LVP's lifestyle is certainly not — as her husband Ken Todd eloquently put it — "paid for with other people's money" like, in his opinion, the main subject of Puppygate herself was (mind you, Dorit Klemsey is still one of the richest housewives despite her legal issues). The Vanderpump-Todds are more entrepreneurs than reality stars, even if Vanderpump Rules brings LVP a reported $500,000 per season. According to Glamour, the husband and wife duo own 26 restaurants and bars, which include SUR and Tom Tom, as seen on their spin-off, which LVP also executive produces. Vanderpump also owns a canine rescue center, launched her own wine called Vanderpump Rosé, produced a documentary on China's dog meat trade, and serves as the editor-in-chief of Beverly Hills magazine (which is, honestly, probably more of a passion project considering media salaries these days). 

All in all, LVP's impressive resume has helped the London-born housewife rake in a colossal reported $75 million net worth.