Tyra Banks: Career, Business, and Wealth

Tyra Banks has a net worth of $90 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. The bulk of that fortune comes from her decades as a supermodel, her run as creator and host of “America’s Next Top Model,” and a string of business ventures that followed her television career.

Quick Facts

Early Life and Background

Banks was born in Inglewood, California, and grew up in Los Angeles with her mother, Carolyn London, a former medical photographer who later managed Tyra’s early modeling career. She started modeling as a teenager and signed with an agency while still in high school. By 1991, at age 17, she was walking runways in Paris for major fashion houses, and within a few seasons she had contracts with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Her early success set the stage for a modeling career that broke several barriers for Black women in fashion, and it gave her the leverage to move into television once her runway years slowed down.

Banks attended Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles before her modeling work picked up, and she has said in past interviews that her mother’s background in photography shaped how she approached the business side of modeling from the start. That early exposure to contracts, bookings, and image rights is often cited as part of why she moved into producing so quickly once she had the standing to do it.

Career and Income Breakdown

Modeling Career

Banks became one of the defining supermodels of the 1990s. She was the first Black woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, in 1997, and later became the first Black woman to walk in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show before joining the brand as an Angel. She also held a reported $10 million deal with Victoria’s Secret and a long-running contract with CoverGirl, according to Parade. Those two deals alone accounted for a large share of her early wealth, well before she ever picked up a producing credit. Banks was also part of the wave of 1990s supermodels who turned magazine covers and runway bookings into recognizable personal brands, walking for designers across Paris, Milan, and New York in the years before she moved behind the camera. She also became the first Black woman to appear on the cover of GQ, a milestone that ran alongside her Sports Illustrated cover and helped push her name beyond fashion trade circles and into mainstream magazines and talk shows. Those crossover appearances gave her name recognition that later translated directly into television offers once she stepped back from full-time runway work in the early 2000s.

“America’s Next Top Model”

In 2003, Banks created and began hosting “America’s Next Top Model,” a reality competition that ran for more than 20 cycles and turned her into a television franchise owner rather than just an on-camera talent. Forbes reported that Banks earned an estimated $30 million in 2009 alone from her various projects, and The Hollywood Reporter put her annual salary from the show at around $18 million in 2008. As creator and executive producer, she held ownership stakes that paid out well beyond a typical hosting fee, which is a large part of why the show remains the biggest single contributor to her wealth.

The show also moved networks over the years, airing on The CW before later cycles shifted to VH1, and it launched international versions in several other countries. Each of those licensing deals added a separate revenue stream on top of the core US production, which is part of why Forbes and other outlets tracked her annual earnings in the tens of millions during the show’s peak years rather than a flat hosting salary.

“The Tyra Banks Show” and Daytime TV

Banks hosted “The Tyra Banks Show” from 2005 to 2010, a daytime talk show that won two Daytime Emmy Awards during its run. The show gave her a second major income stream and helped establish her as a producer and businesswoman rather than just a former model, which mattered when she started pitching her own companies a few years later. Beyond the Emmy wins, the daytime show became a regular platform for her to discuss body image, self-esteem, and entrepreneurship with a wide audience, themes she later carried directly into her books and her Harvard coursework.

Later Hosting Roles

Banks judged “America’s Got Talent” from 2017 to 2019, then took over as host and executive producer of “Dancing with the Stars” in 2020, replacing longtime host Tom Bergeron. She stayed with the ballroom competition for three seasons before stepping away in 2023 to focus on her own businesses and production projects, a decision she discussed openly with Parade at the time. Her run on “Dancing with the Stars” came during a transitional stretch for the franchise, including a move from network TV to Disney+, and her exit made room for a new hosting pair to take over as the show settled into its streaming era.

Business Ventures

Banks has run several companies alongside her television work. In 2013, she launched Fierce Capital, the investment arm of her holding company, The Tyra Banks Co., and used it to fund her own ventures rather than relying only on outside backers. That same period brought Tyra Beauty, a direct-sales cosmetics line, which she later scaled back as the business shifted focus.

Her most ambitious venture was ModelLand, a modeling-themed attraction first announced in 2019 and based on her 2011 best-selling novel of the same name. The 21,000-square-foot park was set to open at Santa Monica Place in California, with tickets already on sale, before the opening was postponed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and never rescheduled. Advance ticket tiers had ranged from a general admission pass to a premium photoshoot package priced above $1,000, which points to how much upfront revenue the project was expected to generate before the launch stalled.

More recently, Banks founded SMiZE & Dream, an ice cream brand named after her trademark “smiling with your eyes” modeling technique. She also completed a non-degree executive education program at Harvard Business School and has since returned to teach classes on personal branding there, a credential she has pointed to directly when explaining her shift from talent to owner across most of her ventures.

Awards and Public Recognition

Banks’ television work has earned her two Daytime Emmy Awards for “The Tyra Banks Show” and multiple nominations across her hosting and producing credits. She has also been recognized by Harvard Business School, where she completed an executive program and later returned as a guest instructor teaching a class on personal branding, a detail she has referenced in interviews as one of the moves that reshaped how she approaches her own companies.

Income Sources

Tyra Banks’ wealth comes from a mix of the following:

Modeling contracts and endorsement deals from brands including Victoria’s Secret and CoverGirl. Ownership and hosting income from “America’s Next Top Model,” including production fees tied to her role as creator. Salary and producing income from “The Tyra Banks Show,” “America’s Got Talent,” and “Dancing with the Stars.” Revenue from Tyra Beauty and SMiZE & Dream. Profit from real estate purchases and renovations.

Notable Assets

Real estate has been a steady side business for Banks. The Los Angeles Times reported in January 2022 that she flipped five houses in the Pacific Palisades over a four-year span, buying, renovating, and reselling properties in one of the pricier pockets of Los Angeles. More recently, Banks has relocated her family to Sydney, Australia, where she has been focused on expanding her business ventures, including SMiZE & Dream, into new markets. The move has also given her a lower public profile than her Los Angeles years, with fewer red-carpet appearances and a heavier focus on running her companies day to day rather than chasing new hosting roles.

Banks shares her life with businessman Louis Bélanger-Martin and is raising her son, York Banks Asla, who was born in 2016 via a gestational surrogate during a previous relationship with photographer Erik Asla.

Where Tyra Banks Stands Today

Banks is back in the spotlight in 2026 with “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” a Netflix documentary series that revisits the show’s legacy and the criticism it has faced over the years since it went off the air. The project has put a renewed spotlight on the franchise that built the largest share of her fortune, even though Banks herself has moved most of her day-to-day attention to SMiZE & Dream and her family’s move to Australia.

That mix of new media appearances, an existing production catalog, and active consumer brands is the same formula that has kept her net worth relatively stable over the past several years, according to Celebrity Net Worth’s tracking. Rather than depending on one show or one contract, her income now comes from several smaller, ongoing sources instead of a single headline deal.