What is Amy Schumer’s net worth? She is one of the wealthiest, highest-paid and most hated comedians in the world. Details on her fortune explored below.
Content warning: This article contains mention of sexual assault.
Amy Beth Schumer is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer, and director most famous in projects like Inside Amy Schumer and Trainwreck. Schumer ventured into comedy in the early 2000s before appearing as a contestant on the fifth season of the NBC reality competition series Last Comic Standing in 2007.
With a slew of upcoming projects in development, the working mom isn’t going anywhere—except maybe up.
Every comedian can easily get “canceled” or face fan hate due to the nature of the job. So naturally, when Amy’s 2023 Netflix special was released alongside the news that she turned down the role of Barbie in Barbie, the masses came crawling out once again to vilify her.
Upon the release of Amy Schumer’s fifth stand-up comedy special, Emergency Contact, her fans can’t help but wonder why people hate Amy Schumer. With every bit of news surrounding the comedian, there’s always a slew of people ready to hate on her on social media. Of course, we don’t condone this hate, but we are curious about its origins.
In the midst of the hate, she is one of the wealthiest comedians in the world with a staggering fortune. So, how rich is Amy Schumer and why do people hate her?
What is Amy Schumer’s net worth?
Schumer earned a degree in theater from Towson University in 2003 and got her start on the New York City standup comedy scene a year later while studying performing arts at the William Esper Studio and working as a bartender and waitress. In 2007, she appeared on an episode of Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, which she previously said she considered her “big break” despite also coming in fourth place on Last Comic Standing in the same year.
She then dabbled in TV and acting work, with a recurring slot on the Comedy Central sketch series Reality Bites Back and appearances on Red Eye. She released her first Comedy Central Presents special in 2010 and a year later released her first album, Cutting, and co-hosted A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus. Throughout the early 2010s, she appeared in numerous TV shows, including 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls, as well as the Comedy Central roasts of Charlie Sheen and Roseanne Barr.
In 2013, Inside Amy Schumer, a sketch series she’d been working on since 2012, debuted and was a massive hit for Comedy Central—and certified Schumer’s stardom once and for all.
So, how much is Amy Schumer’s net worth? Amy Schumer is an American stand-up comedian who has a net worth of $45 million USD and makes sizable salary, per Celebrity Net Worth. She is very famous all around the world, because of her phenomenal acting and her stand up comedy shows which made her popular worldwide.
Through the success of her father’s furniture company in Manhattan, Schumer’s household was wealthy during her early years. So, we can say she was born rich.
Even though she might be from a rich family, she earned bulk of her fortune from her primary career asa comedian and from commercials. In her campaign for Hellmann’s, Schumer played a “fairy godmayo.” Her Bud Light Super Bowl commercial from 2016 co-starred Seth Rogen and mocked the gender wage gap. She also did numerous ad spots for Old Navy in 2016, including this one which co-stars her sister and frequent collaborator, Kim Caramele.
What is Amy Schumer’s salary? Schumer’s annual salary varies depending on which projects she’s working on and releasing, as well as whether or not she’s on tour performing. In 2019, for example, she made a whopping $21 million alone thanks largely to her standup tour, plus her Netflix special Growing and an HBO Max deal for the docuseries Expecting Amy, which chronicled her pregnancy. In 2017, Forbes reported that she pocketed a cool $37.5 million thanks to her Netflix Leather Special, plus endorsement deals from brands like Bud Light and Old Navy, plus the release of her book, The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo (for which Simon & Schuster reportedly paid her a whopping $9 million advance, though sales of the tome were alleged to be less than stellar).
How much did Amy Schumer get paid for her Netflix special? Schumer’s payday for The Leather Special in 2017 was a hugely publicized debate. Schumer was reportedly set to make $11 million for it, but when she learned that Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle made $20 million each for their own specials on the streaming giant, her team re-negotiated her contract for a higher amount (allegedly in the $13 million range).
How much did Amy Schumer get paid for the Netflix special Growing? Schumer’s payday for her Emmy-nominated Netflix special Growing isn’t publicly known. Released in 2019, Growing followed her 2017 Leather Special, Parade suggests a similar rate in terms of pay, putting it around the $13 million range.
How much did Amy Schumer make for Trainwreck? Schumer reportedly only made about $300,000 upfront for Trainwreck alongside LeBron James and Bill Hader—but the box office for the movie likely gave her a much bigger payday in terms of back-end points and bonuses, as it grossed $140.7 million worldwide following its summer 2015 release.
People hate Amy Schumer because of various statements she’s made throughout her comedy career.
Comedians are tasked with saying controversial things — some might find those things funny, and others might not. No one can be everyone’s favorite comedian; trying to appeal to everyone means giving up some aspect of your values or opinions. Amy clearly has no interest in that. She always says what she wants when she wants. Because of that, however, she’s garnered some hate throughout her decade-long career.
She’s often touted herself as a feminist and is very sex-positive, but she has also torn down other women. In Emergency Contact, Amy made a jab at Hilaria Baldwin for pretending to be Spanish. In her 2015 SNL monologue, she said the Kardashians were “bad role models.” But she often responds to these anti-feminist allegations by sharing that everything she says, she says in jest. She is a comedian, so we can’t deny that.
However, she’s also tried to make jokes about race in her sketch show, Inside Amy Schumer, and her stand-up comedy. And when the famous Will Smith slap occurred, she said she was “traumatized” and “triggered.” Many POC called her out as a white woman for saying a slap, in which she wasn’t involved, between two Black men “triggered” her.
On the other hand, any comedian could feel some sense of fear because the slap set a precedent. Now, if a comedian says something an audience member doesn’t like, they can physically assault the comic.
Other people hate Amy because of her self-admitted sexual assault.
Amy is happily married now, but that hasn’t stopped her from discussing her wild days of dating in the past. At the 2014 Gloria Awards, Amy accidentally admitted to sexually assaulting a male friend while in college.
In her speech about confidence, she shared how she was really into a guy named Matt in college. He was the only man who paid her any attention, which made her feel validated and sexy, despite not feeling attractive compared to the other women at her college. When he drunk-dialed her at 8 a.m., she immediately took the opportunity to show up at his dorm room and have sex with him.
Throughout the story, she talks about how he was falling asleep, although she also mentions how he tried to go down on her. Yes, in today’s world, this would easily be an instance of sexual assault on Amy’s part — it’s impossible to get consent from someone as inebriated as Matt was. When she was a freshman in college, she may not have known that. Even still, that doesn’t excuse her behavior. And it’s made even worse by a second self-admitted allegation.
In a 2012 podcast appearance on the Opie & Anthony Show, Amy shares how she “let” a cab driver finger her. She was 18 years old at the time of the incident, just after her freshman year of college. The male hosts were very excited by the story as Amy explained how she moved the cab driver’s hand to her vagina, and he made her orgasm. When she (and her friend, who was sleeping in the back) got out of the cab, the driver asked where they were going out, but Amy just paid and left.
She felt immediate guilt and disgust with herself and even told her mom about the incident the next day. Does that make what happened okay? Definitely not. At the same time, the hosts were egging her on, making it sound like she was a sexy hero, and Amy was forced to laugh off some of the uncomfortable things the hosts said. Being a woman in comedy can often mean giving into the male gaze so they’ll actually listen.
Much of this probably stems from Amy’s self-admitted struggle with body image and confidence. By harnessing her sexual energy, she felt attractive. Now, we know that this is unhealthy and that it’s not okay to hurt others to gain self-confidence. Amy has shared how she saw herself through the male gaze, which is very clear in her film, I Feel Pretty. By doing so, she has also unintentionally fat-shamed women who may have looked up to her.
Many people just hate Amy Schumer because they don’t think she’s funny.
“Hate” is a strong word, and it’s more likely that plenty of people dislike Amy Schumer’s comedy but know little about the comedian herself. Some people think she talks too much about her vagina, and many men often say she’s just not funny — not because she’s a woman, but just because she only talks about sex (which isn’t actually true).
Even still, allegations of joke stealing have run rampant alongside Amy’s controversial career. This is what first led many women to also dislike Amy. Several of those allegations, however, are about Amy’s sketch show, which has a team of writers. In addition, many jokes come from similar premises, so there are often similarities between the jokes and concepts in comedy, which makes joke theft challenging to prove.
Regardless of all the reasons to hate Amy, there’s still enough love for her to warrant a new Netflix special.
Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact is now streaming on Netflix.