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ByDesirée O
There's no denying the fact that Modern Family was one of the most successful shows on the air during its run from 2009 to 2020. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, the comedy "should never have worked" due to various aspects such as a large cast ("four of whom were children" while they "even threw in a baby"), not to mention the fact that it relied on "a faux-documentary style that was never explained and a comedic mashup" of arguably too many techniques. And yet, when it all came together, "it added up to a smashing hit, as popular as it was critically acclaimed."
Indeed, Modern Family earned its fair share of industry awards, won over countless fans, and made its cast famous — some even more so than they already had been, while providing others with their breakout roles. And perhaps unsurprisingly considering that Modern Family was such a success and relied so heavily on its beloved stars, the show also made its cast members a lot of money.
As it turns out, thanks to the fact that those who were lucky enough to score roles as main characters on the show made so much money while on screen — not to mention the fact that many of them have also been able to make big bucks in various other ways — you might be shocked and seriously impressed to find out just how much the stars of Modern Family are really worth.
Aubrey Anderson-Emmons is a young millionaire
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Fans of Modern Family will know Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett, the daughter of Cameron Tucker and Mitchell Pritchett. What fans might not know is that for Anderson-Emmons' work on the show, she took home three Screen Actors Guild Awards (which she shared with the rest of the cast) as well as a heck of a lot of money. While she joined Modern Family in 2011, two years after it premiered, she still did pretty darn well for herself. "For several seasons, Aubrey's salary per episode was $35,000," according to Celebrity Net Worth. However, by the time the 2018 season rolled around, it had gone up to $70,000 per episode.
Aside from Modern Family, Anderson-Emmons has only had one other acting gig as of writing, in 2014's Distance, but asher IMDb page indicates, she has appeared as herself in several projects. Beyond that, she turned some heads by going viral on TikTok thanks to her impressive lip-syncing skills while jamming out to Kanye West. It's that kind of attention-grabbing ability that's helped her earn a fortune that already sits at $6 million.
However, if life in Hollywood doesn't pan out in the long run, Anderson-Emmons can rest assured knowing that her father, Kent Emmons, could always sell his $12 million Smokey Mountain Castle in Tennessee. The (in)famous building "has been the subject of mystery and intrigue since the moment its construction first began [in the 1960s] and has been the centerpiece of numerous books, articles, and television segments," according to its website.
Rico Rodriguez is really rich
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Rico Rodriguez's career was actually inspired by his sibling's desire to act.According to his bio on ABC's website, his family moved to Los Angeles in 2005 "to support his sister's dream of becoming an actress." Not before long, he was bitten by the acting bug, too. "After one year of watching [Raini] having fun and success, he enrolled in acting classes and soon started making a name for himself," the bio continues. Rodriguez scored roles on shows like ER, Cory in the House, iCarly, Nip/Tuck, My Name Is Earl, and NCIS, as well as appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as "Ice cream kid prankster" and "Young Guillermo."
Of course, Modern Family was obviously Rodriguez's biggest break and money-maker. In 2013, when the young actor was just 14 years old, TMZ reported he was set to make $75,000 per episode in Season 4, $85,000 per episode in Season 5, $95,000 per episode in Season 6, $105,000 per episode in Season 7, and $115,000 per episode in Season 8 as well as a potential bonus. Then in 2017, Variety reported that four of the young stars of the show, including Rodriguez — who played Manny Delgado — as well as Nolan Gould, Sarah Hyland, and Ariel Winter, were given "significant" raises for two seasons.
With Modern Family ending in 2020, Rodriguez was able to give his character a warm sendoff knowing that it helped him amass a $12 million fortune, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Nolan Gould's fortune is as good as gold
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Nolan Gould is another of Modern Family's stars who started out on the show as a child. In fact, he played the youngest of the Dunphy siblings, Luke. Starting in the acting world when he was still in elementary school, you may have seen Gould in roles in Space Buddies, Hysteria, Ghoul, and R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour. He was only 10 when Modern Familypremiered, a gig that earned him some serious pocket change over the show's 11 seasons. He was thought to have been making the same as his other younger co-stars on Modern Family and during the later seasons, Deadline reported that negotiations had resulted in "salary bumps" for the performers.
Even though the show came to a wrap in 2020, Gould told the Sioux City Journal that he was optimistic about his future, saying that he was not only interested in going to college, but he would also "love to produce or direct, but [was] not going to settle on anything — just yet." He explained, "I love my job. I love everybody I work with. At this point, there's so much I could do."
Since the end of Modern Family, Gould has moved onto other on screen work, including appearing on the show What's Up North as Travis Tordjman and in Camp as Ivan which was completed in 2020. Those will surely help to pad Gould's fortune which Celebrity Net Worth notes already sits at $12 million.
Ariel Winter makes (and spends) a lot of cash
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Ariel Winter has been acting since she was 7 years old and in the time since, has landed an impressive amount of work for such a relatively short career. For instance, the star has popped up on ER, Killers, The Chaperone, and Excision as well as landing plenty of other gigs. She's also done voice work, which is why you can hear her as Gretchen on Phineas and Ferb, Marina the Mermaid on Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Roxie Squirrel on Minnie's Bow-Toons, and Sofia on both Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor.
Yet it seems safe to bet on the fact that Modern Family has been the biggest money-making venture for the performer. Just consider that the Daily Mail reported in 2013 that Winter, who was 15 at the time, had signed a $6 million deal "to continue to star in the show."
And what does Winter do with all of that money? Well, back in 2014, when she was still a teenager, TMZ reported that the year before, she had indulged in "shopping sprees, which include[d]: $8,938 at Chanel, $1,253 in one visit to Victoria's Secret, and $1,570 at Christian Louboutin." That may be a lot, but it seems like the star won't have to worry about paying for those shopping sprees thanks to the fact that she has $12 million to her name, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Sarah Hyland has even more than her Modern Family siblings
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Sarah Hyland started out in the acting business playing Howard Stern's daughter in 1997's Private Parts and has nabbed plenty of roles since. You might have seen her on One Life to Live, Lipstick Jungle, Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, and in the 2017 remake of Dirty Dancing as well as the Veronica Mars reboot. However, the majority of her fortune likely came from her time on Modern Family, which involved her playing Haley Dunphy (who eventually became Haley Marshall), the popular older sister. According to Deadline, in 2012, she banked "in the neighborhood of $70,000 an episode," which apparently tripled her pay.
But acting isn't Hyland's only money-making endeavor. She has also dipped her toes in the music industry, doing a cover of The Chainsmokers hit song "Closer" and in 2019 she collaborated with Jordan McGraw (yep, Dr. Phil's son) to write the song "Met at a Party."She is also no stranger to musical theatre as she performed in the 2014 musical Hair and the televised version of Walt Disney's Annie, where she can be seen belting out the classic "It's a Hard Knock Life," sans Jay-Z. Hyland also tops off her bank account by doing endorsements on Instagram. Boasting over 8 million followers as of writing, she has done ads for After Pay and Hasbro among others.
Between her lucrative acting career, paid endorsements, and budding musical opportunities, Hyland has managed to bring in a net worth of $14 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Eric Stonestreet has banked on Modern Family and baseball
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While Eric Stonestreet has appeared on shows like You're Not a Monster, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and American Horror Story, he has also done voice work, contributing to The Secret Life of Pets (as well as the sequel) and Sofia the First. But fans of Modern Family will know him as the charismatic Cameron Tucker.
For his role, Stonestreet made "nearly $500,000 per episode" during the final seasons of the show, "up from roughly $350,000 per episode," according to Variety. Beyond that, Deadline noted that Stonestreet (as well as Ed O'Neill, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Sofia Vergara) "also ha[d] a piece of the series' backend." Thanks to that kind of banking power, the Modern Family stars regularly appeared on Forbes' lists of the highest-paid actors on TV over the years, including Stonestreet who, for instance, took the No. 7 slot in 2018 with $13.5 million.
Stonestreet may have used some of that money to help him branch out into professional sports. Although you won't find him pitching on the mound, in 2019 he became part owner of Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals. He tweeted about the development, writing, "When this opportunity arose to invest in the Royals, I could not think of a more exciting or fitting way to combine one of my passions with my love for the great people of my hometown." It has also likely helped him bank $23 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson turned his passion into a fortune
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Jesse Tyler Ferguson won fans over as Modern Family's openly gay yet sometimes neurotic lawyer Mitchell Pritchett. For his work on the show, the actor was one of the (adult) castmates who saw their salaries bumped up from around $350,000 per episode to a whopping $500,000 per episode, according to Variety. On top of that, he earned paychecks from appearances on shows like The Class, Do Not Disturb, and Ugly Betty while also performing on stage in On the Town, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spamalot!, and Fully Committed. As if that wasn't enough, he popped up in Taylor Swift's video for "You Need to Calm Down" and took on a hosting role for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
However, Ferguson has seemingly made the bulk of his money through his successful career as an actor, which stemmed from a love for the art form. He told the Daily Record in 2012 that even though he doesn't know why he "wanted to become an actor in the first place" because he came from a family who "all hate the limelight," he explained, "I had a passion for acting ... and there was no question in my mind that I would do anything else with my life."
The star's passion for the craft has helped him pad his pockets and even landed him on Forbes' list of the highest-paid TV actors around, with Celebrity Net Worth putting his fortune at $20 million.
Julie Bowen went from tips in her socks to millions in the bank
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Julie Bowen has an impressive acting career which includes past appearances on ER, Ed, Weeds, and Boston Legal as well as roles in Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore and Hubie Halloween. She has also stepped behind the microphone to lend her voice to Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, Family Guy, and the Ducktales reboot. But it was her role as Clair Dunphy on Modern Family that earned her serious recognition and megabucks. She nabbed the fifth spot on Forbes' list of the highest-paid TV actresses in 2018 thanks to the $12.5 million that she made that year, and her salary on the hit show topped off around $500,000 near its end.
Bowen talked to People about her success and paying her dues in the industry, saying, "The first time I booked a guest spot on a TV show, I was living in this miserable apartment in New York City, waiting tables until three in the morning and Rollerblading home with my tips in my sock." A far cry from starring on one of television's classic family comedies. She recalled, "When you're young and hungry and just trying to get work, you take any role you can get and you're just so happy about it. Now I get to have options, which feels great."
It doesn't look like she will need to be taking drink orders any time soon with an $18 million fortune to her name, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Being a 'big kid' made Ty Burrell rich
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Ty Burrell started his acting career on the theatre stage in plays like Babble, Macbeth, and Richard III. Of course, he's also had a number of roles onscreen, and his list of credits includes films like Black Hawk Down, Dawn of the Dead, Muppets Most Wanted, and The Incredible Hulk. He was also Modern Family's Phil Dunphy, the quirky father, which was a role that was created specifically with him in mind. In Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television's Groundbreaking Sitcoms, the show's co-creator Steve Levitan explained, "We wrote Phil for Ty because there's something about the fact that this guy is unrelentingly nice, never stops trying, and is a big kid. All of that applies to Ty."
Being a big kid on TV helped Burrell earn spots on Forbes' lists of highest-paid TV actors more than once, including 2017 (No. 6 spot with $13.5 million) and 2018 (No.9 with $12 million). Near the end of the show's run in 2020, he was making "$500,000 an episode," according to Deadline. But his time as a Dunphy may not be over as Forbes reported that "there are talks of a spin-off to continue the family's storylines."
Thanks to his success on Modern Family, Burrell was also able to make a pretty decent chunk of change doing "seven-figure endorsement deals with Gain detergent and the National Association of Realtors," according to Forbes. Because of that, Celebrity Net Worth puts his fortune at $26 million.
Ed O'Neill made the most money when Modern Family started
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Back in 1969, Ed O'Neill had a shot at being a pro-football player. He told Irish America, "I was a good football player, but I was never going to be a great pro-football player... I was with the Steelers and I got cut, I remember when I left I was relieved." From there, his passion for acting led to roles in movies and shows including Dragnet, Big Apple, The West Wing, and Spartan.
But before Modern Family, O'Neill was best known as Al Bundy from Married... with Children. Running from 1987 to 1997, at the peak of the show's popularity, O'Neill was pulling in "more than $500,000 per episode... making him one of the highest-paid performers in television [at the time]," according to the Los Angeles Times.
Years after his successful stint on Married... with Children he went on to nab another family man role as Jay Pritchett on Modern Family. According to Variety, while some of O'Neill's castmates were earning around $350,000 during earlier seasons, he had "already had commanded a higher fee, and ha[d] done so since the show debuted, at a time when his star-power and profile was much more significant than his co-stars." He was not only making money in front of the camera on the show but he "also ha[d] a larger profit stake than the rest of his co-stars." O'Neill's many years on screen have led him to an impressive fortune of $65 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Sofía Vergara makes a fortune on and off television
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There's no doubt that Sofia Vergara is a successful star. She's scored roles in Machete Kills, Chef, Hot Pursuit, and The Emoji Movie, not to mention her work as the passionate and dramatic Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on Modern Family.
For Vergara's work on the show, she was another star who was seeing $350,000 per episode before taking in $500,000 per episode as the comedy went on, per Variety. In turn, she was regularly on Forbes' list of highest-paid actresses during the show's run, including earning the second spot in 2019 with $44.1 million as well as topping the list in 2018 with $42.5 million and 2020 with $43 million. On top of that, in 2016 — when she nabbed the "top spot on [the] list ... for the fifth year in a row" — Forbes noted that "the actress-turned-businesswoman ha[d] appeared in commercials for almost two dozen brands," which was how she had made "more than half of the $43 million she earned" the year before. Her "savvy endorsements and licensing deals" involved a furniture line that she released with Rooms To Go as well as starring in Quaker Oats commercials.
Vergara's business-savvy ways have definitely paid off with her manager Luis Balaguer telling Forbes, "Acting was what she loved, but she knew she wasn't going to make money on it" — even though she clearly did — "so her entrepreneurialism kicked in." In total, she's worth a staggering $180 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.