Vanderpump Rules started as a spinoff about restaurant staff and ended up minting a few genuinely diversified careers. Lisa Vanderpump had a real hospitality business before the cameras showed up, one that has kept growing since. The 2023 Scandoval storyline is also one of the better-documented scandals in reality TV: a named booking-industry source gave The U.S. Sun exact DJ gig rates, a business partner gave Entrepreneur specific revenue-drop percentages, and Tom Schwartz put a dollar figure on his own loss in a podcast interview. That is an unusual amount of real financial detail for this genre, and it lets us build tighter ranges than usual.
A lot is still missing. No outlet has published exact current per-episode pay for most of this cast, and none of Ariana Madix's high-profile post-scandal deals, from Broadway to Love Island USA, come with a disclosed fee. Where a number does not exist, we say so rather than inventing one.
Vanderpump Rules cast net worth, ranked (2026)
| Cast member | Modeled net worth | What sets them apart |
|---|---|---|
| Lisa Vanderpump | $55–85M | Restaurant and hospitality empire across LA and Las Vegas, decades of RHOBH pay |
| Ariana Madix | $7–13M | Broadway, Love Island USA, Duracell and Bic campaigns, a restaurant, all since 2023 |
| Lala Kent | $4–8M | A beauty brand, film credits, and two documented home purchases |
| Scheana Shay | $3–6M | Music, a podcast, named 2025 brand deals with Shein and Preparation H |
| Tom Sandoval | $2–5M | A diluted TomTom stake, band bookings, documented post-scandal losses |
| James Kennedy | $2–4M | Named-source DJ gig rate of $5,000–$7,500, a final-season pay jump |
| Tom Schwartz | $1.5–4M | Same bar stakes as Sandoval, plus a self-disclosed $600K–700K loss |
| Katie Maloney | $1–2.5M | Co-owns Something About Her; the thinnest documented record of the OGs |
Want the film and TV side of the money story? See how the richest actors' fortunes are built.
Lisa Vanderpump: the restaurant empire behind the show
SUR opened years before Vanderpump Rules existed, and Vanderpump's hospitality footprint has only grown since. When TomTom opened in 2018, Sandoval and Schwartz each invested $50,000 for a 5% stake; by December 2024, Vanderpump said on Watch What Happens Live that their combined stake had fallen to about 2.5%, meaning she and husband Ken Todd effectively control the rest. Schwartz & Sandy's cost roughly $1 million to build out between the two Toms, plus a reported $250,000 from Sandoval's mother, and closed in late 2024 after a revenue collapse (more below). Pump closed in July 2023 after facing $80,000-a-month rent. In Las Vegas, Vanderpump à Paris and Vanderpump Cocktail Garden operate inside Caesars Palace, and a Vanderpump-branded hotel opened there too, though none has a disclosed build cost or revenue figure. Her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills pay was reported at $500,000 a season in 2014, rising to roughly $1 million a season by her 2019 exit, per Brian Moylan's book on the franchise. She and Todd bought the Villa Rosa mansion for $11.995 million in 2011 and a Las Vegas home for $5 million in 2024. Todd ran 26 restaurants and bars in London before relocating to Los Angeles, the experience that underwrites everything since.
The cast's per-episode pay, before and after Scandoval
The original cast reportedly split about $10,000 total for the ten-episode first season in 2013, close to $1,000 an episode. Pay reportedly climbed to around $25,000 an episode by seasons six and seven, and top-tier cast including Sandoval and Scheana Shay were reportedly earning $25,000 to $30,000 an episode by seasons ten and eleven. After Scandoval broke in March 2023, executive producer Alex Baskin told press the next season's negotiations were unusually difficult and that "everybody did better than what they had previously gotten," without naming figures. A report tied to season eleven, sourced to The New York Times, put pay near $35,000 an episode across eighteen episodes for cast at James Kennedy's tier, close to $630,000 for the season. No outlet has published current per-episode numbers for Sandoval, Madix, Schwartz, or Shay, so the raise is real in direction but left out as a specific figure.
Ariana Madix: the post-scandal surge
Madix's pre-scandal VPR pay is estimated near $25,000 an episode, around $600,000 a season, per Hollywood Reporter-sourced reporting. What happened after March 2023 is unusually well covered for a reality personality: she debuted as Roxie Hart in Broadway's Chicago in January 2024, a run that helped the show post one of its highest-grossing non-holiday weeks at over $939,000 in box office, a show-level number rather than her fee. She began hosting Peacock's Love Island USA in 2024, a salary that has never been disclosed. She has run campaigns since 2023 for Duracell and for Bic's EasyRinse razor, the latter called the brand's largest marketing investment in five years and credited with a 35% sales lift after launch, again campaign-level figures rather than her fee. She and Katie Maloney opened Something About Her, a West Hollywood sandwich shop, in May 2024, with producer Randall Emmett investing $150,000 of an originally sought $200,000, later dissolved. No single fee has been made public, so the range reflects the scale of the work, not an invented number.
Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz: the bar stakes that got expensive
Both invested $50,000 each for their 5% TomTom stakes in 2018, since diluted to a combined 2.5% per Vanderpump's own account, and both put roughly $1 million total into Schwartz & Sandy's, plus $250,000 from Sandoval's mother that he has acknowledged on air he has not repaid. Schwartz has been the more specific about the cost: on Lala Kent's podcast in October 2025, he said, "I probably lost 600, 700 grand, which is insane." Partner Greg Morris told Entrepreneur the bar saw a brief 30% revenue jump from scandal curiosity, then a decline as steep as 80% below normal before closing in late 2024. Sandoval's band, Tom Sandoval & The Most Extras, carries a rate card of $25,000 to $39,999 per private event, though no confirmed booking at that rate has been reported. No outlet has put a figure on what Sandoval personally lost in brand deals, only that deals disappeared.
Scheana Shay, Lala Kent, and Katie Maloney
Shay has released music since 2012 with no royalty or sales figures ever disclosed, hosts the podcast Scheananigans, and signed named 2025 partnerships with Shein and Preparation H, neither with a disclosed value. Kent's Give Them Lala Beauty and Skin lines have no published revenue, though a 2023 PrettyLittleThing collaboration was reported by the Daily Mail as a five-figure deal, and her memoir made the USA Today bestseller list without a disclosed advance. She has two documented home purchases: $1.35 million in Palm Springs (2023) and $3.1 million in the San Fernando Valley (2024). Maloney co-owns Something About Her with Madix and runs a podcast and a jewelry collaboration with Sterling Forever, neither with disclosed revenue; her figure is the smallest of the original cast because the record for her is genuinely thin.
James Kennedy: paid by the gig
Kennedy's DJ income is the one lane in this cast with a specific, named-source dollar figure. Michael Schweiger, a former booker at CMG Digital Media, told The U.S. Sun in December 2024 that Kennedy was earning $5,000 to $7,500 per gig. The same report cited a New York Times figure putting his final VPR season near $35,000 an episode across eighteen episodes, about $630,000 total. After a December 2024 arrest on domestic violence charges that ended his run on the show, Schweiger estimated Kennedy stood to lose roughly $1.6 million in combined income going forward, a projection rather than a confirmed loss. The range below reflects his documented peak years, not that projected drop.
How we got these numbers
Every figure starts from the record: MLS and property filings, a named booker's rate, a partner's percentage figures to Entrepreneur, a podcast quote, and confirmed but unpriced brand campaigns. Where no figure exists for a real venture, like a Vanderpump à Paris build cost or most of this cast's current pay, we model conservatively rather than invent or borrow a number. No other outlet's net worth figure is ever used as an input. The methodology page lays out every rate, and the calculator runs the same model on any career.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the richest Vanderpump Rules cast member?
Lisa Vanderpump, modeled at $55 million to $85 million. Her restaurant and hospitality holdings span Los Angeles and Las Vegas, built up over more than a decade, on top of a long-running Real Housewives salary reported near $1 million a season by her 2019 exit.
How much do Vanderpump Rules cast members make per episode?
Reportedly about $1,000 an episode for the original cast in season one, rising to roughly $25,000 an episode by seasons six and seven, and $25,000 to $30,000 an episode for top-tier cast by seasons ten and eleven. Producers confirmed cast members got raises after the 2023 Scandoval season without naming exact figures.
How much is Lisa Vanderpump worth?
Our modeled range is $55 million to $85 million, built from her restaurant and bar holdings including SUR, TomTom, Pump, Vanderpump à Paris, and Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills salary, and documented real estate purchases.
How much did Ariana Madix make after Scandoval?
No single fee has been publicly disclosed for any of her post-2023 deals, but the documented list is unusually long for a reality star: a Broadway lead role in Chicago, hosting Love Island USA, national campaigns for Duracell and Bic, and a West Hollywood restaurant with Katie Maloney.