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Shonda Rhimes is an American TV producer, screenwriter, and author. She is most famous for her work as the showrunner of Grey’s Anatomy where she is the creator, head writer as well as executive producer of the show. Along with that, she is also the showrunner of Private Practice, which is a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy.
Shonda has earned a lot of fame and money through just this series alone, and all that reflects on the Shonda Rhimes net worth. Shonda has also been the executive producer of the show Off The Map, How he Get Away with Murder, The Catch, Station 19, etc for ABC.
Being a part of so many popular shows has got to give an exponential rise to the Shonda Rhimes net worth. If you want to gauge how much fame and influence Shonda has, then look at the fact that in the year 2007, she was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 People Who Help Shape The World.
Apart from producing and making shows, Shonda is also an author, and she published her first-ever book in the year 2015. Her book was a memoir titled Year Of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun, and Be Your Own Person. A rather long title, but it gets the work done, so who are we to judge?
Shonda Rhimes is definitely going to experience an exponential rise because, in the year 2017, Netflix revealed that it had signed a multi-year contract with Shonda about a project’s development. It was decided in the deal that all of Shonda’s future productions would be under Netflix Originals.
Netflix has closely monitored Shonda’s success, and they value her a lot, and maybe that is the reason why along with her work being exceptional that they purchased the streaming rights of Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. Shonda has had a long career in which she has been active since 1995.
In this article, we will discuss Shonda Rhimes net worth, how she earned it, as well as discuss some personal life information about Shonda along with how she has earned so much money. Let us begin.
Early Life
Before we talk about Shonda Rhimes net worth, let us get to know Shonda a bit more. Shonda Lynn Rhimes was born on January 13 in 1970 in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. She was the youngest child amongst 6 children of Vera p. And ilee Rhimes Jr., Vera used to be a college professor while Ilee was a university administrator.
Her mother had been a real fighter as she attended college while she raised 6 kids and earned a Ph.D. in educational administration in the year 1991. Even her dad became the chief information officer at the University Of Southern California.
Shonda used to live in Park Forest South with her siblings, and she said she had developed an affinity to storytelling around this time. When she was in high school, she served as a hospital volunteer, and it inspired an interest in the environment of the hospital. Maybe this is where the inspiration for Grey’s Anatomy came from and helped in the rise of Shonda Rhimes net worth.
Shonda had adopted her first daughter in the June of 2002 and later, she adopted another girl in the year 2012. Her third daughter was born via gestational surrogacy, and Shonda loves all her 3 daughters more than anything. Around early 2015, Shonda revealed that she had been exercising and she had even lost 117 pounds.
Shonda even joined the national board of Planned Parenthood in April of 2017, and then she went on to join the When We All Vote organization as a co-chair. This organization had been founded in order to get out the vote prior to the general elections of 2020. Now let us find out how Shonda achieved her education and laid the foundation to the Shonda Rhimes net worth.
Education
Shonda attended the Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois, and she majored in English and film studies at Dartmouth College and earned her bachelor’s degree in the year 1991.
She had also joined the Black underground Theatre Association around that time and had divided her focus into student productions and writing fiction. In The year 2014, Shonda received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Dartmouth College, where she had been giving a commencement address.
She had also started writing for the college newspaper, and she moved to San Francisco with a sibling and worked to advertise at McCann Erickson. She later moved to L.A. and attended the University of Southern California and studied screenwriting there which is what has helped her earn the big Shonda Rhimes net worth.
Shonda was ranked amongst the top students in her USC class and even earned the Gary Rosenburg Writing Fellowship. She earned the Master Of Fine Arts degree from the USC School OF Cinematic Arts. She also got hired by Debra Martin Chase as an intern during that time and Chase is someone whom Rhonda gives a lot of credit in molding her to become successful.
She says that her early success had Chase’s major hand in it as she inspired her because she was an African-American producer. She had also worked at Denzel Washington’s company, the Mundy Lane Entertainment. Shonda even got to work with her mentor on the project of The Princess Diaries 2 and that is how the Shonda Rhimes net worth started its ascent.
Career
The Beginning of Shonda’s Career
Now that you know how Shonda’s education was acquired, let us move on to her career as this is how she has earned the Shonda Rhimes net worth. You would be surprised to know that Shonda had been unemployed after her graduation.
So that she could keep her life going, she had to do a number of jobs that included an office administrator, counselor at a job center that taught job skills to people with housing inability and mental illness, etc. When she was doing all this, she was also the research director on Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream, which is a documentary. It won the Peabody Award in 1995.
She was also involved in making a short movie Blossoms and Veils which features Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jeffrey Wright. This short film was the only project which credits her as a director. The New Lines Cinema had purchased some of her scripts and she had received an offer to co-write a movie by HBO.
That is how the Shonda Rhimes net worth was dragging itself just so Shonda could find a place in Hollywood for herself. In 2001, she also wrote Crossroads which was the debut movie of Britney Spears. This movie grossed over $60 million all around the world. Shonda also worked on Princess Diaries 2 but the movie did not do well at the box office.
Later in the year 2003, Shonda wrote a pilot episode script for a TV show for ABC. This was about the female war correspondents but the network somehow didn’t see the merit in the idea and so it was turned down by them.
This explains how the Shonda Rhimes net worth did not do much during Shonda’s initial days. But her big breakthrough was yet to come and that would take her to new heights. And that is exactly what Grey’s Anatomy did.
Shonda Rhimes Net Worth
Now to tell you what you have been waiting to hear for so long. The Shonda Rhimes net worth is about $140 million, which is a very impressive number but considering her contribution in the projects like Scandal, Grey’s Anatomy, and Private Practice, it should not come as a surprise to anyone at all.
Like I mentioned before, Shonda had made a deal with Netflix in the year 2017, which was a 4 year deal where all her creations would go under the Netflix banner. Reportedly, she had been signed on the project after being promised $100 million. $100 million is a pretty big number but considering the quality of the work by Shonda, it should not surprise you.
Even though Shonda struggled at first with her career, once it picked up the pace, she has never looked back again. Most of her fortune before Netflix had come through her days at the ABC network where she didn’t only get a fee for every episode, she also got an extra $10 million a year from 2015 to 2018 from ABC.
She also got about 10% of the profit when her shows were syndicated or sold to any streaming services. She had done about 317 episodes for Grey’s Anatomy. You can only guess how much she would have made from all that. When she got the percentage profit from ABC after selling the episode rights for her show, she made about a million dollars per episode.
All these things have made what the Shonda Rhimes net worth is today and you cannot deny that Shonda did not deserve all this. She has earned every last penny through her hard work and talent. She does not just work for the money, but also to spread happiness amongst people and to allow them a reprieve from life to forget about their worries when they watch her works.
Shonda’s Shows
Grey’s Anatomy
Talking about Grey’s Anatomy, which is probably Shonda’s best work, and the show that was a major contributor to the Shonda Rhimes net worth, this show started airing on March 27th in 2005. This show had come on as a replacement for another show that had been shut down mid-season.
The show features the surgical staff at the fictional Seattle Grace hospital which was later renamed as Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. This hospital is located in Seattle, Washington. The show has cast members like Ellen Pompeo, who is the main character called Meredith Grey. The majority of the show is shown from her perspective.
To add to the Shonda Rhimes net worth, another show called the Private Practice was launched, which was a spin off of Grey’s Anatomy. This show debuted on the 26th of September in 2007 on ABC. This show was about the life of Addison Montgomery after she left the Seattle Grace Hospital and joined a private practice.
Private Practice featured stars like Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Auda McDonald, Taye Diggs, etc. The 1st season of the show was shortened because of a writer’s strike and hence, has only 9 episodes. The show came back in 2012 with 13 episodes and the show finale was aired on January 22 in 2013. This is how Private Practice just helped grow the Shonda Rhimes net worth even more.
How Netflix Took The Shonda Rhimes Net Worth To New Heights
As I have already mentioned, Shonda made a deal with Netflix that would last 4 years and she would get around $100 million from it. This was a multi-year development deal. As I said, Netflix had already purchased the streaming rights for the past episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
Ted Sarandos who is the Chief content officer proclaimed that Shonda is a true Netflixer at heart and she loves TV and movies and that is why she is very passionate about her work as well. And that is the thing that helps her deliver what the audience wants from her.
Shonda has said that she was happy with the deal because Ted Sarandos understood what kind of work she was going to do and that she needed an opportunity to build a vibrant and new storytelling home for writers that would have a lot of creative freedom and because of Netflix, they would get an international reach.
Because Shonda had been giving prominence to ABC, people considered the deal to be a coup but all the speculations were put to rest when by the end of 2020, Shonda had worked on more than 12 projects for Netflix, one of which was Bridgerton and we all know how good Bridgerton is.
Other series
In the year 2010, Shonda created a new pilot for ABC named Inside the Box with a female-centric cast set in Washington D.C. network news bureau but the network decided to drop the idea. In 2011, Shonda was the executive producer for the medical drama Off the Map which was created by Jenna Bans but the show was canceled on May 13 2011.
All these things might not have been that big a contributor to the Shonda Rhimes net worth but it was still work and it is a part of any content creator’s journey. ABC offered Shonda to write the pilot to Scandal which had stars like Olivia Pope and the show debuted on April 5th in 2012.
Shonda also worked on Gilded Lilys but this was not picked up by the network either. In 2013, ABC gave the project of writing How To Get Away With a murder to Shonda and it had the actress Viola Davis in it and it was telecasted in 2014.
In 2016, Shonda also worked on The Catch which featured Mireille Enos and Peter Krause. The Catch got canceled after its second season but in the following year, Scandal came back for its 6th season, How To Get Away with Murder for its 3rd and Grey’s Anatomy came back for its 13th season and that is how the Shonda Rhimes net worth has been making huge amounts of money.
Shonda also has the production company Shondaland under her name and it includes projects like Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Off The Map, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, The Catch, Still Star-Crossed, For the People, Station 19, Bridgerton etc. All these shows under the Shondaland have been major contributors to the Shonda Rhimes net worth.
Awards Of Shonda
The biggest awards Shonda has achieved was the notable Golden Globe awards and she was also nominated for 3 Emmy Awards. All the awards and nominations that she has got attest that she deserves the huge Shonda Rhimes net worth.
She has won awards like:
- DGA Diversity Award of Directors Guild Of America Awards in 2014
- Golden Gate Award of GLAAD Media Awards in 2012
- Outstanding Drama series awards for Grey’s Anatomy in the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011 for NAACP Image Award.
- Television Series Drama for Grey’s Anatomy for Producers Guild of America Award in 2006
- New Series awards for Grey’s Anatomy Writer Guild of America Award in 2005
Cessation | Shonda Rhimes Net Worth
Shonda Rhimes has worked hard to get where she is today and you cannot take away any credit from her for her talent and passion towards her work. She has been in the industry for about 25 years now and anyone with that much experience knows what they are doing.
Everyone has the occasional setbacks but you should not let those things get you down. You should always try to do your best again and that is what we can learn from Shonda and who knows, maybe one day we will have a net worth to match the Shonda Rhimes net worth as well. Dreams come true when you start seeing and believing in them.
