Bill Cosby Net Worth: $400 Million (approx.)
| Net Worth: | $400 Million (approx.) |
| Date of Birth: | Jul 12, 1937 |
| Age: | 86 years |
| Height: | 6 ft (1.85 m) |
| Profession: | Actor, Comedian, Author, Screenwriter, Television producer, Film Producer, Educator, Activist, Musician, Voice Actor |
| Nationality: | United States of America |
Bill Cosby net worth is around $400 million. Bill Cosby is a world famous comedian, television star and producer. Bill Cosby is well known for creating and starring on The Cosby Show.
Bill Cosby Salary/ Earnings:
At the peak of the show, Bill Cosby was the highest-paid television actor in the world. Bill Cosby base salary for the show was $1 million per episode, but when his producing, creator, syndication and various other income streams were addded up, Bill Cosby earned $4 million per episode. It is around same earning as $8 million per episode today.
Bill Cosby owned 20% of the show’s equity which has generated millions in syndication royalties over the last many decades, though those royalties have mostly lowered down in recent years in the wake of his scandals.
Bill Cosby used those royalties, in addition to royalties from other programs and speaking engagement fees to invest in a valuable real estate portfolio and art collection.
Depending on their respective market rates at any given moment, Cosby art collection and real estate portfolio could be worth more than $250 million. Bill Cosby reportedly spent millions of dollars on various legal defenses and could be liable for millions of dollars in future damages.
Even before The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby was one of the highest-earning celebrities on the planet. In 1968, Bill Cosby turned down a five-year $3.5 million contract (that’s the same as $25 million today) to launch his own production company.
Bill Cosby started pumping out his own comedy albums and would eventually go on to create the TV shows Fat Albert and The Bill Cosby Show (not to be confused with the sitcom of the 80s).
The long-running success of The Cosby Show has turned Bill into one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry. The show ran from 1984 to 1992. At the peak of the show he was earning $4 million per episode (the same as $8 million today).
In the last two decades alone, the show has generated over $1.5 billion from syndication. As the owner of 20% of the show’s profits, Bill Cosby has earned at least $300 million from syndication deals alone.
What is bill cosby’s net worth?:
Bill Cosby net worth is $400 million in 2023. Bill Cosby has also millions more from endorsements (most notably Jell-O), movie appearances, live comedy shows and other (less successful) TV series. His 2014 comedy tour grossed $11 million over 100 shows.
Bill Cosby House:
Bill Cosby real estate is worth over $100 million. He has many properties in Pennsylvania and Beverly Hills. Bill Cosby estate in Beverly Hills alone is around as $70 million based on comparable recent sales.
Bill Cosby Art Collection:
Bill Cosby and his wife Camille own what has been described as “the most significant art collection in the hands of an African American family”. Bill Cosby started acquiring pieces in the 1960s and today the family collection includes pieces by Thomas Hart Benton, Rembrandt, Renoir, Picasso and Matisse. Their art collection alone could easily be worth north of $150 million.
Bill Cosby Biography:
Bill Cosby was born on July 12, 1937 in Philadelphia. Bill is one of four children of Anna Pearl and William Henry Cosby. His father was class president at Mary Channing Wister Public School in Philadelphia.
He was known for his reputation as the class clown. He attended Germantown High School but failed in tenth grade.
In 1956, Bill Cosby left school at the age of 15 to join the Navy. Bill Cosby worked in physical therapy with Navy and Marine Corps who had been injured during the Korean War.
Bill Cosby eventually earned his diploma and went on to get a doctorate in Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bill Cosby also bartended at clubs and made big tips off those he made laugh. He then focused his efforts on the stage.
Bill Cosby Standup Comedy Career:
Bill Cosby debuted as stand-up comedian in the clubs of Philadelphia and then in NYC at The Gaslight Cafe in 1961. Bill Cosby went on to tour and do stand up in Chicago, Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
In 1963, Bill Cosby touring led to national exposure on The Tonight Show and a series of successful comedy albums in the 1960s. Bill debut LP dropped in 1964, Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right! Cosby won 7 Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Performance between 1965 and 1987.
Bill Cosby album To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With was named number one on Spin’ magazine’s list of the 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time.
Bill Cosby made a name for himself by recounting humorous stories from his childhood. Bill Cosby success in standup led to television roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show and the action series I Spy, for which he won three consecutive Emmy Awards.
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Bill Cosby Career:
Before starting The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby was a regular guest host for The Tonight Show, and hosted and starred on an annual special for NBC. For 2 seasons, starting in 1969, Bill Cosby starred in The Bill Cosby Show.
In this early version of The Cosby Show, Bill Cosby played a P.E. teacher at a Los Angeles high school. The show was a ratings hit but only a modest critical success.
Bill Cosby was at odds with NBC for refusing to utilize a laugh track for the show. His claim was that viewers had the ability to find humor for themselves without being prompted.
From 1972-1979, Bill Cosby created, hosted, and produced the animated Saturday morning cartoon, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. It was based off Bill’s own childhood. The show was wildly successful.
The Cosby Show:
In the 1980s, Bill Cosby launched one of the most successful sitcoms of all time called The Cosby Show. Cosby co-produced and starred in the series and held much creative control. He involved himself with every aspect of the production of The Cosby Show. Plots were often based on Bill Cosby actual family life, and the similarities didn’t stop there: Main characters, parents to 5 children Cliff and Clair Huxtable were college-educated and financially successful, much like Bill Cosby and his real-life wife. The show ran from September 1984 to 1992 and is one of only two sitcoms to remain at the top of the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons.
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Life After The Cosby Show:
Bill Cosby second sitcom, Cosby, aired from 1996 – 2000 and during this time, Cosby also returned to his stand-up roots, hosting programs such as Kids Say the Darndest Things, as well as several game shows.
Bill Cosby also became a popular spokesman, representing brands like Jell-O, Kodak, Ford, and Coca-Cola. Bill performed Far From Finished, his first stand up special in over 30 years, on Comedy Central in November 2013.
Cosby toured with the show and performed his last one in Atlanta Georgia in May 2015. Bill last known stand up performance was in Philadelphia on January 23, 2018.
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Bill Cosby Wife:
Bill Cosby has been married to wife Camille since 1964, and the couple had five children. Their son Ennis, at age 27, was murdered in January 1997 in an attempted robbery while he was changing a flat tire on the side of the interstate. Their daughter Ensa died of renal disease while awaiting a kidney transplant in February 2018. In 2016, Cosby’s attorneys revealed he is now legally blind.
Sexual Assault Convictions:
Bill Cosby has been the accused of highly-publicized rape, sexual assault, child sexual abuse by many women since 2000. His accusers say the earliest of the assaults started in the mid ’60s. Cosby repeatedly denied the allegations, stating that the incidents were consensual.
Most of the acts alleged by his accusers fell outside of statutes of limitations for legal proceedings.
In the wake of the allegations, almost everyone associated with the Bill Cosby brand moved away from him. Reruns of The Cosby Show and other shows featuring Bill were pulled from syndication.
In 2015, Bill Cosby was the subject of 8 civil suits, which later rose to 33. On April 26, 2018 a jury in Pennsylvania found Bill Cosby guilty of 3 counts of aggravated sexual assault.
In September 2018, Bill was sentenced to 3 to 10 years at a state prison. Bill was confined to a single cell in administrative segregation at SCI Phoenix in Pennsylvania, but was moved to the general population of the prison in January 2019. In December 2019, Bill Cosby lost an appeal to overturn his conviction.
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Bill Cosby Interesting facts:
During much of Cosby’s early childhood, his father was away in the U.S. armed forces, spending many years serving in the theater of war in World War II.
As a student, Bill Cosby described himself as a class clown. Bill Cosby was the captain of both the baseball team and the track and field team at Mary Channing Wister Public School in Philadelphia, as well as the class president.
Teachers noted Bill Cosby propensity for clowning around rather than studying. At FitzSimons Junior High School, Bill Cosby started acting in plays as well as continuing his devotion to playing sports.
Bill Cosby went on to Philadelphia’s Central High School, a magnet and academically rigorous university prep school. Bill was working before and after school, selling produce, shining shoes, and stocking shelves at a supermarket to help out the family.
Cosby transferred to Germantown High School, but failed the tenth grade. Instead of repeating, he got a job as an apprentice at a shoe repair shop, which he liked, but could not see himself doing the rest of his life.
In 1956, Bill enlisted in the Navy, serving at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland and at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.
During his four years in the Navy, Bill served as a Hospital Corpsman working in physical therapy with Navy and Marine Corps personnel injured during the Korean War
Cosby finished his equivalency diploma via correspondence courses and was awarded a track and field scholarship to Philadelphia’s Temple University in 1961.
There, Bill studied physical education while running track and playing fullback on the university’s football team.
As Bill moved to complete his undergraduate studies, he continued to hone his talent for humor, joking with fellow enlistees in the service and then with college friends. When he began bartending at a Philadelphia club to earn money, Bill Cosby became more aware of his ability to make people laugh.
After using humor on his customers and seeing his tips increase, Bill Cosby then took his talent to the stage.
Bill Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in comedy, lining up standup jobs at clubs first in Philadelphia and then in New York City, where he appeared at The Gaslight Cafe beginning in 1961.
Bill Cosby received national exposure on NBC’s The Tonight Show in the summer of 1963. This led to a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records, who, in 1964, released his debut LP Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right!, the first of a series of comedy albums.
Bill album To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With was number 1 on Spin Magazines list of “The 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time”, calling it “stand-up comedy’s masterpiece”.
Many Americans wondered about the absence of race as a topic in Bill Cosby stories. In 1983, Bill Cosby released the concert film Bill Cosby: Himself; it is widely regarded as “the greatest comedy concert film ever”.
Younger, well-established comics like Jerry Seinfeld have credited Bill Cosby as an innovator both as a practitioner of the genre of standup comedy, but also as a person who paved the way for comics to break into sitcom television.
