The Richest Gay Celebrities and What They're Doing Right With their Money | Queer Money Ep. 588

They've got the money, the fame, and the flawless skin. Just like you, honey. So what exactly are people like Anderson Cooper, RuPaul and Elton John doing, right, with their money?

On Queer Money, episode number 588, we're breaking down how the richest LGBTQ icons built real wealth and how you can steal their best financial moves and you don't have to steal their private jet. So we're tapping into, we've talked about this before several times on the show, the four P's that our community is obsessed with, penis politics, pop culture, and prestige.

So we're tapping into a little bit of the pop culture and maybe the procedure today, trying to hopefully inspire our listeners and viewers to see how can we use some of the celebrities that we adore, use them as examples to improve our own financial conditions. Right, so let's kick off with everyone's favorite news anchor, and that's Anderson Cooper. Silver Fox, Samantha Fox. That doesn't work. Yeah. So Anderson Cooper has a net worth ranging somewhere between 60 and $200 million.

It's a big range. Yeah. Quite the rang, probably because there's a little ambiguity about how much money he has actually inherited. His income sources are multiple. He didn't, he didn't. Just a news anchor. We know he does have the show 360 with Anderson Cooper on CNN. He also is a correspondent for 60 Minutes, but he's done many other things including writing his own books. So he has diversified his income streams.

Despite the fact that he is a Nepo baby and the Vanderbilt heir, he apparently didn't receive a significant inheritance. Now, I'm sure to many of us, definitely, it probably feels like significant, Right? But he does like to emphasize the fact that he is, quote, unquote, self made to most for most of his wealth, but he does has invested that wealth into things like real estate, including properties in New York and Connecticut, which I'm sure both have experienced significant appreciation.

One of the takeaways here from Anderson is that building wealth through diverse, diversified income streams is possible and prudent, especially when you're able to use some of that diversified income to actually turn around and make more income through investments, regardless of what your family background is. Right.

So you'll see common themes throughout the different six different celebrities that we're going to talk about today, which are themes that we've talked about multiple times on this podcast. One is almost all of these celebrities have diversified their income streams, right? They had their one big hit. They had their. They built their first bridge, and then from that, they were able to create other streams of income so they weren't reliant on what they built originally. Originally.

The other theme I think you'll see is most, if not all of them, if I remember, have invested in real estate. We talked about building your the wealth builders pyramid and how real estate should be a significant portion of that. Of course, not all of us can just go out and buy another a second home or an investment property. But there are ways to use your current home, even if you're renting, to get some rental income.

Such, you know, you could rent out a room in your apartment or your house, similar to the Blanche Devereaux strategy. Right. Or on Airbnb. Or you can tap into the storage market. Right. It's a huge industry. You can use your attic or your garage or your basement to, and rent a space for to storage other people's probably their junk.

All right, our, our second celebrity Here is Rosie O'Donnell. Now, Rosie O'Donnell is worth an estimated $80 million, but being Madonna's best friend is priceless. Right, David? Course, of course, Rosie O'Donnell got her that start in standup comedy and probably her big break in television and movies, but she sort of segued that into getting into Broadway. And then, of course, she was a Broadway producer for a couple of shows. She's parlayed that into several book deals.

And she also does real estate investing. Then she diversified her income streams through all those different sources. Rosie, of course, founded the Rosie for All Kids foundation in 1997. I didn't know this until we researched it, but she used her $3 million advance for her memoir to launch that foundation, and since then has given away $22 million in kids focused charities, which is pretty awesome.

Also April 2025, O'Donnell participated in a fundraising event for As I Am, an Irish autism charity, highlighting her ongoing commitment to autism advocacy following her relocation to Ireland with her autistic child, Clay. And I think that's another thing benefit you get with this financial security, this, this wealth that these celebrities have built.

If the environment that they're in has become toxic and they can no longer live there anymore, it gives them that one of those fifth freedoms that we talked about, gives them the opportunity to relocate somewhere else. Right. I think part of why O'Donnell went to Ireland is because their child is trans and they felt that was not a safe environment for their child to stay in the United States.

She and her child moved to Ireland and that's sort of the luxury you have of being able to build this wealth, right? You do tap into those five freedoms, one of those being location freedom, and the second one being you freedom. Being able to live your life the way that you find beneficial for you and your family. Number three here is RuPaul. Everyone's. I don't want to say favorite drag queen, but probably most well known, right?

And RuPaul, of course, is known for RuPaul's Drag Race, which she makes an estimated $800,000 an episode on Significant. But we also know that that's not where she got her start, right? If way back, you're probably looking at maybe one of her first big breaks was having a Talk show on VH1. But she's also done multiple income streams, has invested in real estate, has a home in Beverly Hills, has a ranch in Wyoming, which she makes money off of. The land lease land and mineral leases off of that.

Because, yes, bitch, that bitch is a fracker. And she does do brand endorsements and her own product lines and supports other product lines as ways of making more money. One of the important things here is to realize that she monetized her personal brand across various platforms that allowed her to insulate herself from public scrutiny and attacks, because we know that that's been happening to her for quite a long time.

And probably our biggest lesson from RuPaul was when they reached out to us to do something with the show, and we said, would RuPaul like to come on the Queer Money podcast? And the producer laughed at us and said, oh, honey, RuPaul doesn't do anything for free. So that's our big lesson, is don't give away what is valuable that you have as a skill or a service or a product. Don't give it away for free. Earn those Benjamins. And that's why RuPaul's estimated to be worth about $60 million.

Moving on to celebrity number four is Elton John. Elton John is estimated to be worth 655. I'm sorry, 650 million dollars. Most of that came from his over 300 million album sales worldwide, which is about the same that Madonna had, but in a shorter time. Second, Madonna. Madonna reference. Of course, Ellen. John has had many lucrative tours. He did several rounds of the Piano man tour with Billy Joel, but most recently, he had the Farewell to Yellowburg Road tour. Grossed nearly a million.

I'm sorry, a billion dollars. 939 million to be exact. Right. Just right behind Taytay and Beyonce. And he's 12 times her age. Going to come out at you like she did. She'll never come on her show. And he's also diversified his income streams beyond that. He's invested in many lots of different music technology to make better quality music for folks, but also in his eyewear brand.

Elton, of course, founded the Elton John AIDS foundation in the early 90s, I believe, and since then has raised over $600 million for HIV and AIDS causes. So the big takeaway here is leveraging your brand and passion to parlay that into figure out how you can help other people. Right.

It's great to be able to have this wealth and have the freedoms and be financially secure yourself, but it's even better to be able to use some of what you've been able to build to actually help others that need it. Number five is Elliot Page. Now, Elliot has an estimated net worth of $8 million. Elliot is acclaimed for their roles in films like Juno, Inception, as well as the Netflix series the Umbrella Academy. But Elliot has also done other things for work rather than just acting.

We know brand endorsements, voiceover work. Actually know that Elliot gets paid to speak because we were paid to speak at a conference. And we know that Elliot got paid a lot, lot, lot, lot more money than we got paid. But Elliot has also invested in real estate, purchasing a home in Los Angeles for $1.7 million and turning around and selling it for 2.1 later on. But has also been a supporter of the community through organizations like GLAAD and hrc doing philanthropy work with them.

In this case, Elliot has leveraged their personal authenticity and public platform to build wealth as well as advocate for meaningful causes, which I think, again, as you pointed out, that is one of the things that wealth can do is not only allows you to give, but it also allows you to employ. You think of all of the people that these individuals are able to also employ with the money that they're earning. Right? They're corporations under themselves.

Our sixth and final celebrity here, of the many, many, many celebrities you could have chosen is Laverne Cox. Laverne Cox is estimated to be worth about $6 million. Of course, their breakout role on Orange Is the New Black is what most of us initially knew Laverne from, which led to several Emmy nominations. But then, of course, she's partly that herself. Into also speaking gigs, hosting gigs, and brand partnerships. And now she's literally everywhere.

Every time I join around, Laverne Cox is doing something I don't know how. She must have more hours in her day than I do. But, you know, so she's diversified her income streams and just Wasn't, didn't only stay in acting, Right. Because maybe those gigs will dry up or maybe, you know, Hollywood's having a crisis right now, so maybe the opportunities just aren't there for everybody like they used to be.

So now she can parlay that into other opportunities so she can still maintain some level of financial security. And of course, Laverne Cox is a huge advocate for trans rights, supporting initiatives that promote LGBTQ + equality. The big takeaway here, especially for Laverne, is resiliency. Right. Because I don't think she got orange as a new black until a little bit later in life and when many of us might have maybe given up on what our dream, dream job was going to be.

So that resiliency is probably the biggest takeaway to take from Laverne Cox. Right.

So what are the key lessons that we can learn from folks like these as well as many of the other celebrities we know that are earning significant amount of money? Well, number one, we've said it, and we'll say it again, we've talked about it on the show.

Diversify your income streams, whether that's a side hustle, investments, passive income into something like real estate or, or creating your own product that you can sell, do something to diversify your income stream so that you can then take that income and invest it to actually grow your wealth. The second lesson here is invest in your personal brand. Now, authenticity is important. It's a powerful way to show people who we are and it can be a great way to attract lucrative opportunities.

But remember, it's not all just about looking good. It really is an investment in yourself. If you treat it that way, you can use this as an opportunity to make money.

That should be the goal in investing in your personal brand. Otherwise, if you're doing it to just look good, well, then you're just spending. And we just interviewed Corey Ray, model and actress for Living not so Fabulously for Yahoo Finance. And she said, work, get a job, get a job, people. Number three is David alluded to earlier, is investing in real estate. Right. We've talked about the Wealth Builders pyramid. You want to have multiple streams of income.

For most wealthy people, there's some level of real estate investing and you should definitely figure out what you can do to tap into that. And finally, here is philanthropy and advocacy. Right? There's. It's great to have all this money. It's great to have all this financial security. It's great to be able to buy whatever it is that you want to buy. But it's also better to be able to give back to those who need it, whether they need a handout or a hand up.

This provides you the opportunity to give back to the community or to other people, right? So do you want to build wealth too? Well, if so, hit subscribe Leave Us a Review Share this episode with your ride or die friend that still thinks that retirement is only for rich straight couples with a dog named named Cooper here. Anderson, thank you for joining us for another episode. Until next time, stay fabulous.