The straw that stirs the drink, indeed. Real Housewives of New York star Sonja Morgan is no stranger to money — and lots of it. The firecracker is worth a whopping $8 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. But how exactly did she collect so much cash over the years? Here’s a breakdown.
Sonja Is Reality TV Royalty
First and foremost, the blonde beauty has starred in RHONY for 10 years, since season 3 premiered in 2010. Sonja currently rakes in a mind-blowing $465,000 per season of the beloved Bravo series. We imagine a sizable amount of her large fortune has come from starring on the reality show.
Sonja Is an Entrepreneur
Always a fan of a good cocktail, the mother of one created Tipsy Girl Wines. See, there’s a reason she’s known as the straw that stirs the drink!
Sonja is also the creator of fashion, fragrance and shoe line Sonja By Sonja Morgan, which is exclusive to Century 21 and her own website.
Sonja Is an Actress
The funny girl starred in Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man, which premiered off-Broadway in October 2016. While it’s not a TV salary, professional theatre can be a lucrative endeavor — especially when cast in a show as a celeb.
Sonja Has Endorsements
With a solid 890,000 followers on Instagram and another 468,000 on Twitter, the reality star has the opportunity to do paid advertisement posts in partnership with different brands. Even the Real Housewives are living that influencer life.
Sonja Owns Property
If you’re a RHONY fan, you’ve probably heard Sonja talk about her precious townhouse, which she bought in 1998 for $9.1 million. She moved out of her five-story Upper East Side home in 2018 and started renting it out for $32,000 a month. In March 2020, she put the property on the market for $10.75 million.
Sonja currently lives in a two-bedroom high-rise apartment in Columbus Circle worth $1.6 million.
Sonja Has Money Issues
The reality star filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010, citing $13.5 million in assets and $19.8 million in debts. Part of those debts — a whole $7 million — were a result of a lawsuit involving a production company she used to own regarding a failed movie project starring John Travolta.
At the time, she owned her townhouse and an $8 million chateau in St. Tropez outright. In 2014, it was revealed that a trustee in the bankruptcy case sold off the French property for $5.7 million in an effort to rectify the debts.