Kriti Mehrotra
Born on June 21, 1982, in Santa Rosa, California, to Janet Harris and Joel Smollett as one of their six children, Jussie Smollett grew up surrounded by affection, care, kindness, and love. His mother was actually a part of the Black Panthers, whereas his father was absent for a majority of his early years, so his social environment had a significant influence over how he carries himself. Thus, he has never shied away from who he is as well as his experiences, even though being a Black, half-Jewish, gay child actor turned serious adult artist is not the traditional norm in the industry.
How Did Jussie Smollett Earn His Money?
Jussie Smollett was merely two years old when his family relocated to Queens, New York, shortly following which he suddenly found himself evolving into a professional actor and model. However, it was only when they moved to Los Angeles for good around 1989 that his career started gaining traction as he went from being an extra in New York-shot movies to being a credited character. In fact, some of his earliest works include ‘Mo’ Better Blues’ (1990), ‘New Jack City’ (1991), ‘A Little Piece of Heaven’ (1991), ‘The Mighty Ducks’ (1992), ‘Queen’ (1993), ‘Coach’ (1993), and ‘North’ (1994).
Jussie then expanded his wings by dabbling in voice acting and portraying Mike in the animated series ‘Cro’ (1993–1994) before becoming a series regular on ABC’s ‘On Our Own’ (1994–1995). He was undeniably on the rise, but he chose to step away from the limelight almost as soon as he reached adolescence so as to focus on studies, be a normal teenager, and find his own place in this world. The Paramus Catholic High School graduate eventually did return to acting with ‘The Skinny’ (2012), marking the occasion with a story that resonated with him as an LGBT-themed comedy-drama.
Jussie subsequently guest-starred on ‘The Mindy Project’ (2012) as well as ‘Revenge’ (2014), leading him to land the role of a lifetime opposite stars like Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in ‘Empire.’ He played Jamal Lyon, a gay musician desperate for his father’s approval, only for his performances to gain him such exposure as a singer that he actually landed a record deal with Columbia in 2015. From there, he also gradually started dabbling in directing and producing, all the while continuing to act/guest-star in projects he believed in as well as make original music that soothed his soul.
The rising star appeared in two episodes of ‘Underground’ in 2016, served as a guest host on ‘Live! With Kelly’ for six episodes that same year, did ‘Alien: Covenant’ in 2017, and then did ‘Marshall’ too. However, everything turned upside down for him in early 2019 when he claimed to have been the victim of a hate crime, only for the police to ascertain his alleged attack was a hoax he himself had orchestrated. In the end, while all charges of false reporting against him were dropped, his reputation had taken a hit, resulting in Jamal Lyon being written off from ‘Empire’ and him deciding to take a break.
While Jussie did try to stay out of the spotlight for a while, he couldn’t do so for long because his creativity kept on flowing to such an extent that he simply had to return and share his stories. He wrote and directed a comedy-drama titled ‘B-Boy Blues’ in 2021, following which he also decided to open up about the alleged hoax on Fox’s ‘Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax Himself’ as well as Netflix’s ‘The Truth About Jussie Smollett?’ Since then, he has even co-directed, written, and starred in ‘The Lost Holliday’ (2024) before releasing his most recent single, “Break Out,” on August 12, 2025.
Jussie Smollett’s Net Worth
Considering the fact that Jussie has been active in the entertainment industry for around 20 years in total as of writing, he has certainly managed to accumulate significant wealth over the years. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to ascertain his precise earnings per year or per project owing to the nature of his work, but from what we can tell, he made at least $3 million a year during his peak. According to reports, he reportedly bagged around $20,000 per episode when ‘Empire’ first started airing, just to get a significant raise once the show started gaining traction across the globe. The fact that his character was hailed as groundbreaking for being a positive, realistic depiction of a black gay man on television also likely affected his salary across different projects a lot. After all, he himself represented that too. Therefore, upon taking all these aspects into account, along with his possible assets, investments, returns, and expenses he incurred due to legal challenges, we believe his net worth to be $3 million.
Disclaimer: The estimated net worth above is based on publicly available clues and educated guesses. The only person who truly knows the real figure is Jussie Smollett himself.
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