One of the most delightful additions to Season 14 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was Jennifer Tilly. She’s known to movie fans for the Chucky franchise and her 1995 Oscar nomination for Bullets Over Broadway, but people didn’t know she was rich — really rich.
Her life is being described as one of a “gambler” by The New York Times because she bet on herself in her acting career. Did anyone think a campy horror film would entertain decades of audiences? She’s also a professional poker player, winning over $1 million in earnings, and she made a smart deal in her divorce from Sam Simon that has afforded her a lavish life.
Who is Sam Simon?
Sam Simon was one of the founding creators of The Simpsons, along with Matt Groening and James L. Brooks. Even though he left the animated series after the fourth season, he had a vested stake in the show along with the lucrative licensing deals. When his seven-year marriage to Tilly ended in 1991 (he died in 2015), the 66-year-old actress got a slice of The Simpsons pie. “Listen, once you hear she owns a piece of ‘The Simpsons,’ that is such a delicious piece of historical information,” Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen told the outlet.
How rich is she? Well, Celebrity Net Worth claims she has amassed a $40 million fortune, but it sounds like much more than that. Tilly has two homes next door to each other in the ritzy neighborhood of Bel Air (she only lives in one of them) and a Malibu beach house that she says is “haunted,” so she doesn’t go there. If that LA real estate portfolio isn’t enough, then add in her Las Vegas, Vancouver, and New York City properties to the mix. In addition, she buys her “haute couture dresses” and “extravagant jewelry” — Tilly doesn’t need to borrow a thing even though it’s an acceptable protocol in Hollywood.
“Jennifer is an owner, not a loaner,” fashion expert Cameron Silver told The New York Times. “It makes a huge difference when the clothes are your own, when you take your jewelry off at night and it goes in the safe, as opposed to a security detail.” Still, Tilly is surprised that people weren’t aware of her wealth — maybe because she is pretty humble about the entire situation.
“Number one, I don’t think of myself as rich,” she told E! News in January. “But I guess I’m delusional because I do have several properties and a purse apparently that cost $33,000. I thought everybody knew that I had a piece of The Simpsons. It’s not a large piece, but even a little piece is something to write home about.” She claimed she lives in a “very small, cluttered house” and that the “giant house next door” is for entertaining only.
That sounds pretty fancy to us, but Tilly is sticking by her mantra that “it’s kind of gauche to flaunt your wealth.” She’s going to continue to live a more simple life even though her reality is much grander than the average person.
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