Bill Cosby’s Net Worth, Career, Family, Houses and Cars

Quick Facts of Bill Cosby

Introduction

Bill Cosby is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is the man behind Fat Albert and The Cosby Show. He is also the first black American actor to ever star in a series through I Spy in the 1960s.

Through his Hollywood success, he has gained a net worth of $400M. However, he was convicted of sexual assault in 2018 and is currently detained in a state prison in Phoenix. He is currently 81 years old.

Bill Cosby’s Life

Before amassing a $400M net worth, all is normal with Bill Cosby. Growing up, he excelled mainly in sports like track and field, basketball and football. When he was 19, he enlisted for the navy. There he served as a hospital corpsman during the Korean-American War in 1956.

After his naval service, he was given a full scholarship at Temple University in 1961 in exchange for playing in the football and basketball team of the university. After college at Temple, he worked as a bartender to earn extra money. The jokes with fellow enlistees in his navy days and with friends at the university became made his customers laugh at the bars. Gaining enough confidence in the late 60s to pursue stand-up comedy, he decided to follow that path.

Comedy and acting seemed to be a good decision and in no time, he was on his way to fame. From the 1960s to 2000, Cosby would be in the limelight of shows that he created and produced and would star in films in between. His career was smudged, however, by controversy when he was alleged and then convicted of sexual assault in 2018 and was imprisoned in that same year.

Family

Bill Cosby is one of the four sons of parents Anna Pearl Cosby, a maid and William Henry Cosby, Sr. who was a mess steward for the US Navy. He was born in Philadelphia on July 12, 1937.

He married Camille Hanks in 1964. They have five children; four girls and one boy. Their only son, Ennis, died when he was a teenager when he got shot while he was changing his car tires in an interstate in Los Angeles while their daughter Ensa died of renal disease in 2018. Their eldest daughter Erika, followed Bill’s artistic side and is now a renowned painter in New York City.

Career

Before becoming the famous actor and sitcom star that he was, Bill Cosby started as a comedian in Philadelphia, New York and later on in California in the late 1960s.

In 1967, he got his first bill at Hollywood through “I Spy” and became the first black man to get a lead role in a TV series. He produced his comedy albums thereafter and won Grammys for five consecutive years. Because he proved himself as bankable, he starred in the sitcom The Bill Cosby Show from 1969 to 1971.

In 1972, he began producing his own shows such as the Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids. From 1984 to 1992, he also produced and hosted The Cosby Show. The said show was the top-rated TV show in the US for four years starting in 1985. In between the late 1980s to 1990s, he was cast in films.

He was still very much present in the Hollywood scene in the 2000s when he produced and starred in his sitcom Cosby. His last sitcom stint before the allegations of misconduct surfaced in 2010 was Kids Say the Darndest Things which ran until 2000.

Throughout his famed success, his reputation as an actor was clouded by allegations of misbehavior, inappropriate conduct and sexual assault by almost sixty women who have come forward to pass formal complaints. In April of 2018, Cosby was convicted of sexual assault. He is currently detained in the State Correctional Institution of Phoenix and is expected to remain there for three to thirty years.

How did Bill Cosby make money?

• As TV producer
• Writing books and producing comedy albums
• Acting and comedy

Net worth from 2010-2019

• 2010: $197M
• 2011: $225M
• 2012: $245M
• 2013: $287M
• 2014: $292M
• 2015: $302M
• 2016: $330M
• 2017: $360M
• 2018: $385M
• As of 2019, business reports claim that Cosby still has a solid $400M net worth. In spite of the fines and lawsuit costs he faced over the years due to allegations of defamation, abuse, and sexual assault, he was able to maintain such massive net worth.

How much does Bill Cosby make in a day?

Before the allegations of sexual assault surfaced, Bill Cosby was said to be making $35M a week or $5M per day. After the allegations, his weekly earnings went down to $20M, making it a $2.85M a day in 2017.

What does Net Worth Mean?

What is a Net Worth?

It is a quantitative concept which measures the value of an entity. It is applicable ranging from an individual to companies, organizations, sectors and a country as a whole. To put it simply, it is the difference between assets and liabilities. A positive net worth means assets are greater than liabilities, whereas negative net worth mean liabilities are greater than assets.

Formula:

Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities

A little more into Net Worth Concept:

Net worth conveys the financial health of any entity. Asset is anything that is owned and has a monetary value to it while liabilities is a commitment that deplete resources. Assets can be liquid or which can turn into liquid ( example: bank check ). They are non-liquid when they take time to turn into cash (like for example Home). Whereas liability is an obligation that has to be repaid ( example: home loan, car loan etc.,)

Any financial institution or 3rd party look at your assets and liabilities to understand the financial position. Positive net worth or increasing asset base indicates good financial health while negative net worth or increasing liabilities means a bad financial health condition.

It is always a good habit for any entity to maintain a reduce liabilities and increase or maintain a balanced asset base.

What does a Net Worth Mean to a person?

In simple terms, it means the value that is left after subtracting liabilities from assets. Few Examples of liabilities include car loans, student loans, home loans, credit card bills, and other mortgages etc., whereas an individual’s assets are amount in the savings account, home, vehicle, bonds, stocks and other material that has value.

In other words, whatever is left after paying off all the personal debt from asset base is net worth. It is important to understand that value of net worth varies as per the market value of assets and current debt costs.

For example:

Consider a case of Ramu Johnson. His assets include a house valued at $350000, shares worth $150000 and a car worth $35000. His liabilities include a mortgage balance of
$150000 and an outstanding car loan $15000 to be paid.

Now Ramu Johnson’s Net Worth = ($350000+$150000+$35000) – ($150000+$15000)
= ($535000 ) – ($165000)
= $370000

Assuming Ramu Johnson’s financial position after five years as follows –
House value at $350000, Shares value at $180000, savings $ 40000 and car value $25000. While mortgage loan $120000, car loan $0 (paid off).

The Net worth after 5 years would = ($350000+$180000+$ 40000 + $25000 ) – ($120000)
= $595000 – $120000
= $475000

Here it is understood that, although the fact that the value of a house and car decrease, the net worth have increased to $475000. It is because a decline in house loan is less than the overall asset base and decrease in liabilities.

Note that, an individual’s net worth can be negative if his asset base is less than liabilities.

What does net worth mean for celebrities?

Most often celebrities fall under High Net worth Individuals. And what does HNWI mean?

People with considerable net worth as called as HNWI.

Independent Charted Accounts, wealth managers and investment counsellors stay close to them making them as prime markets.

As per Securities and Exchange Commission( SEC), investors more than 1Million are considered as accredited investors to invite them to invest in unrequested securities.

Is 401k part of net worth?

As per the definition, 401K is also a part of net worth if it is calculated in terms of assets and liabilities. But, in this case, 401K have no specifics as in, therefore it cannot be measured.

What is the average American net worth?

Like any entities net worth a countries net worth can be calculated as below. It is a sum of net worth of all individuals (citizens), companies and organizations reside in America, plus countries net worth. In America, this measure is referred to as financial position.

As on quarter 1 2014, America’s financial position =
Assets ( $269.6 trillion) – liabilities ($145.8 trillion ) = $123.8 trillion.

What is a good net worth by age?

What is the net worth of the top 1%, 5%, 10%?

As in America, wealth distribution is as follows
Richest 1% of the population owned 35% of the country’s total wealth
Richest 5% of the population owned 11% of the country’s total wealth
Richest 10% of the population owned 12% of the country’s total wealth

Houses and cars of Bill Cosby

If anything, Cosby indeed invested much in real estate. His seven-bedroom and seven-bathroom Elkin Park mansion in Philadelphia is where his family lived since 1983 and where he was under house arrest in 2018. It is also reported that they have a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts where Camille, his wife, retreated after he was convicted in 2018. Along with these are two buildings in Santa Monica, one building, and a five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home in Los Angeles.

Bill Cosby owns vintage cars such as the 1966 Supersnake Cobra, a 427 Twincharge Cobra, a Chevy 300SL Roadster and a 1974 Ferrari 365 GT4.

Success lessons from Bill Cosby

Work it until you make it.

Cosby believes that there is no formula to success. In an interview for his sitcom Kids Say the Darndest Things, he said that the desire to success should always be greater than the fear of failure. The best thing to keep this desire he added is to work hard and bring on the hustle.

You cannot please everybody.

When controversies about his alleged inappropriate behavior towards women first surfaced, he nudged it off by saying, the key to failure is pleasing everybody. From this, he noted that he cannot explain success using a framework but that he stayed long enough in the business to understand that trying to please everybody is the greatest source of failure.

Inspirational Bill Cosby Quotes

Laughter brings out the child in all of us.

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.

Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.

Conclusion

Bill Cosby is undeniably one of the most successful self-made actors/comedians as he has been a mainstay in the limelight since he started his career in the 60s. However, the prize of fame was given when he was convicted of sexual assault in 2018. He has an estimated net worth of $400M.

References:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby
• https://www.billcosby.com/the-artist/
• https://radaronline.com/photos/bill-cosby-camille-cosby-escape-massachusetts-mansion-hero/
• https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bill-cosby-is-shedding-tens-millions-la-real-estate-1106673