National hero and person who loves saying the word “trauma” Jamie Lee Curtis has been acting since she was a kid (yes, she’s technically a nepo baby) and stars in one of Hollywood’s most successful movie franchises, so yeah. She’s rich. How rich, pray tell? Jamie Lee Curtis has a reported net worth of $60 million (combined with her husband Christopher Guest) thanks to starring in films like the Oscar winning Everything Everywhere All At Once, the should-have-been Oscar winning Freaky Friday, and Knives Out. Plus, she has some very fancy real estate and happens to be a best-selling author (who knew!). Time to dive in, but heads up: her Halloween salary is a true shock to the system.
Inside Jamie Lee Curtis’s Halloween $$$
Jamie Lee has been in seven Halloween movies, solidifying her position as the ultimate Scream Queen. According to Celebrity Net Worth, her earnings for the first few Halloween movies were relatively small: She made just $8,000 for Halloween, $100,000 for Halloween II, and then kicked things up to the millions for Halloween: Resurrection (specifically, $3 million).
^ A moment for this amazing Instagram post/caption.
Jamie Lee spoke about her Halloween salary to Variety, saying, “The truth of the matter is, I didn’t really make much money off of the horror movies. Look, we’re actors, so we already make more money based on the little work we do. It’s hard to ever say, ‘I didn’t make a lot of money.’ Tell that to a teacher or nurse. But as a young actress, I did not. I did not have ownership in the movies. There was no profit participation. There was no back end.… There was no large amount of money made.” She added, “Obviously someone was making a lot of money—it was not me and it was only in the latter years—the H2O, the 2018 Halloween, which, by the way, we made for scale.”
Jamie Lee also made it clear that she now self-advocates for a piece of that pie: “The industry has no problem when a man makes millions of dollars on something that’s a franchise. We as a society go, ‘Good on ya!’ But then if a woman says, ‘Well, I would like that same piece of the pie,’ I think people would think you’re being greedy, or you’re not being grateful. As if somehow we as women have to be just grateful for the opportunity. Which we already explained we are!”
So, What About Her Other Movie/TV Earnings?
Again, Jamie Lee has had an extremely successful career and made a ton of movies and TV shows (remember Scream Queens?!). But information about her paychecks are few and far between. We do know, however, that she made $70,000 for Trading Places thanks to this oral history of the film from Insider.
Jamie Lee Is a Best-Selling Author
In case you weren’t aware, Jamie Lee has written multiple best selling children’s books! Not sure what she made for them, but it’s definitely not nothing.
She Owns Some Fancy Real Estate
Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest have reportedly owned their Santa Monica home for over two decades and bought the lot next door in 2016 for $2.2 million. TBD on what it’s worth now, but likely a *lot* more than what they paid for it.
She Didn’t Inherit Anything From Her Father
Jamie Lee’s father was actor Tony Curtis (of Some Like It Hot fame), and apparently he re-wrote his will before dying, leaving her and her siblings nothing. As Forbes reported in 2011, “Tony Curtis redid his Will and Trust in May of last year, a few months before he died from cardiac arrest. When he did so, he cut out all of his children. His will lists all five by name–including Jamie Lee–and states that he intentionally disinherited them. No reason was given in his will.”
Jamie Lee’s sister gave an interview to Inside Edition saying the siblings were “all blindsided” by the decision.
Welp. On that kinda odd note, time for everyone’s fave meme.
Mehera Bonner is a celebrity and entertainment news writer who enjoys Bravo and Antiques Roadshow with equal enthusiasm, She was previously entertainment editor at Marie Claire and has covered pop culture for over a decade.