There’s the rich, and then there’s “so-rich economists literally have to invent a special phrase to describe your wealth.” Michelle Williams, in case you were wondering, falls into this second category.
The estimated net worth of the actress officially qualifies her for membership in the UHNWI club. UHNWI stands for “very wealthy individual“and that’s an actual designation for a specific level of wealth. Seriously. There’s a Wikipedia page about it and everything (TIL, right?).
We’ll go into detail on Michelle’s UHNWI threshold/net worth (which happens to be the same number) in a minute, but first, let’s talk a bit about how she amassed all this impressive wealth.
She has been working as an actress for 30 years now.
Most of Michelle’s income obviously comes from her acting work. While she’s best known for starring in smaller indie films than major blockbusters (and the huge paychecks that can come with them), she’s honestly been in the game for so long that she three decades the value of the paychecks add up. She made him acting debut at age 13 in a 1993 episode of Baywatch and at the age of 15, she legally emancipated of her parents (with their blessing) so that she can work more and not be restricted by child labor laws.
The hard work paid off because, just five years later, Baywatch appearance, Michelle was starring in Dawson’s Creek and spend his breaks from the show building it independent film credit. In 2005, his performance in Brokeback Mountain cemented her status as a highly talented dramatic actress and earned her the first Oscar nomination of her career (she’s been nominated four more times since, for her roles in blue valentine, My week with Marilyn, Manchester by the seaand, more recently, for The Fabelmans).
She’s not afraid to fight for the pay she deserves.
Although little information is available on Michelle’s salary history, she isn’t afraid to be very public about her salary if necessary. In 2018, she became *the* face of the gender pay gap issue when reports surfaced of the huge pay gaps between her and All the money in the world co-star Mark Wahlberg. Following sexual assault charges against then-actor Kevin Spacey, the film’s director, Ridley Scott, made the bold decision to undertake last-minute covers to remove Spacey’s performance from the final version of the film (he was replaced by Christopher Plummer).
The reshoots cost an extra $10 million, and the director initially told USA Today that even with the extra budget, the reshoots were possible because “everyone did it for nothing,” quoting himself and Michelle Williams specifically as having agreed to come back for nothing so there would be money to pay the crew and Plummer, who was doing her work on the film for the first time.
“No, they all came for free. Christopher had to be paid,” he explained. “But Michelle, no. Me, no. I wouldn’t do that.”
Mark Wahlberg’s awkward omission from the team’s “doing it for nothing” list of players turned out not to be an oversight at all. Eventually, it emerged that the actor earned an additional $1.5 million for the 10-day revival while Michelle received an $80 per diem which amounted to less than $1,000 (the discrepancy between the original salaries of the actors as the film also later proved significant – he earned $5 million for his supporting role in the film, while she was paid $625,000 and played a starring role in the film).
Michelle, who didn’t know her co-star negotiated more money when she agreed to work essentially for food allowance, rose to meet the moment and became an equal pay advocate.
“I grew up a lot then, because doing anything in public is very difficult for me,” she later said. Variety experience. “But I felt like I was getting a clear message that I had to stand up and deliver. I had to ask myself if I could be a person who was big enough, strong enough and mature enough to see the opportunity in front of me. and grab it.” ?”
And she would have had at least a few big paydays.
Michelle is best known for her stellar work in indie films, and while her passion for projects always shines through, indie films are smaller productions with smaller budgets and smaller paychecks for their stars. Exact figures of his salary on different films and series over the years are, honestly, pretty impossible to find (with the notable exception of All the money in the world, Of course). However, at least an estimate of the salaries of the actors of Venom of 2018 set his salary at $7 million for the project.
Beyond that, Michelle’s exact payday numbers are incredibly hard to come by, but we can predict that she likely earned a similar payday for the other big hit movie of the past decade, Oz the Great and Mighty based on speculation about his costars’ salaries for the 2013 film (James Franco reportedly won $7 million for her role in the film and Mila Kunis reportedly earned $13 million that yearwith $8 million of that supposed to be for his work on ounces).
She invested in real estate.
Like many celebrities, Michelle has invested some of the millions she has earned in real estate, especially Brooklyn real estate. More recently, she bought a $10.8 million townhouse in Brooklyn Heights in 2020 with her husband, hamilton director Thomas Kaill. In 2014 she sold the Boerum Hill townhouse she once shared with Heath Ledger for $8.8 million and she apparently still owns a third home in Brooklyn…a 100+ year old home in Prospect Park South which she picked up for $2.5 million in 2015.
It’s unclear how (and even if) Heath Ledger’s estate is taken into account.
Even though her salary information is rarely made public, the biggest mystery piece in Michelle’s net worth equation is the estate of her former and late partner, Heath Ledger. Michelle and Heath met on the set of Brokeback Mountain in 2004 and reports suggest they got engaged shortly after they started dating. In October 2005, the couple welcomed their daughter, Matilda, but ultimately split in 2007just months before Heath’s death in January 2008.
“Our first meeting, the circumstances of our first meeting, were cosmic or something,” Michelle said. QG in 2012 from the very fast pace of her early relationship with Heath. “Yeah, a lot of things happened at the same time. It’s kind of like we had a lot to do because we didn’t have a lot of time, or something.”
Because Heath’s most recent will at the time of his death had been drawn up two years before Matilda was born and therefore did not include her, there was speculation that Michelle would be forced to engage in a complicated legal battle to assert Matilda’s right to inherit her share of the actor’s $20 million estate. Fortunately, no legal headaches were necessary because Heath’s parents and sisters (who were named beneficiaries in his 2003 will) voluntarily signed the whole truth about the succession to Matildaas they believed his father would have wanted.
“There was never any question that Heath’s estate would go to Matilda,” said Heath’s father, Kim Ledger. People in September 2008. “Never a question. We are very close with Michelle and Matilda.” While there’s no indication that any part of the estate went directly to Michelle, it’s also unclear if any part of the trust (which Matilda won’t have direct access to until regardless of whether she is an adult) has been counted in the top estimates of Michelle’s net worth. (and without more data on his film salaries, it’s impossible to make even a vaguely educated guess, unfortunately).
Alright, so how much is Michelle Williams’ net worth?
According Celebrity Net Worth (whose figure seems to be the guide to which most other actress net worth estimates have deferred), Michelle Williams has a net worth of $30 million, putting her above the UHNWI threshold and giving her more enough financial freedom to keep signing for the low-budget indie masterpieces we love him for.