What is Whitney Thore's net worth? How 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life' star built her brand
Thanks to social media and advertising, women have never been more pressurized to look a certain way in order to fit in with the societal norm and expectations or even to be successful. The unrealistic beauty standards imposed upon women, especially young girls has resulted in not only body image issues and eating disorders but also created a host of self-confidence and esteem issues.
But Whitney Way Thore, the star of TLC's popular show 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life' has built her brand by aggressively promoting body positivity and encouraging women of all shapes and sizes to not only embrace their bodies but to live their life to the fullest without paying any attention to people who fat-shame or body shame. Today Whitney is not only a strong advocate of body positivity, but she is also a successful reality star and an entrepreneur with an impressive net worth of an estimated $4 million! But the road to success wasn't a bed full of roses for Whitney. Her fair share of struggles and experiences catapulted Whitney into the person we have all grown to love. If you're curious to know more about Whitney's journey to success, then read on.
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Whitney Thore's education and Career
Whitney was born in April 1984, in Greensboro, North Carolina. She studied at Page High School before graduating from Appalachian State University, where she majored in theater.
Prior to becoming a household name as a popular reality star, Whitney began her career as an English teacher in South Korea. She later moved back to America, and landed a job as an on-air producer of a radio show called 'Jared & Katie In The Morning' in Greensboro. In 2014, while she was still working on the radio show, she posted a video of herself dancing on the radio show's YouTube page. At that time Whitney had no idea how that video would change her life forever, The video became a viral hit and launched her career as a reality star on 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life'.
"My co-worker Jared Pike suggested putting the video online because fat girls are really popular on the internet. It started being shared on Facebook and people weren’t posting it to say ‘haha, lets make fun of this girl’ which is what I would think. They were actually posting it to say ‘yeah, this girls awesome’ and I was just feeling all this love from all over the place," reported Heavy.
Net worth
The success of her YouTube video helped Whitney land her popular reality show 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life'. When fans asked her if she made a lot of money on the show, she shook her head to say no. Although TLC hasn't released any information on how much Whitney is paid for filming her reality show, according to various reports Whitney earns between an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 per episode of 'My Big Fat Fabulous Life'.
So, if Whitney feels that she isn't making much from her show then how has she managed to rack up a net worth of $4 million? Well, the reality show isn't her only source of income, although it did help her with generating various other sources of income by increasing her popularity. Whitney leveraged her growing fame into becoming a social media influencer. You can often see Whitney promoting various brands and services on her social media pages. Aside from social media promotions, Whitney also launched her own business venture called 'No BS Active'. In an interview with People she shared, "People were asking me about my workouts ALL the time… I’ve gotten such a good response from people, whether they be fat people or people with different abilities, or people who just aren’t confident in their fitness levels. I’ve been thinking about what I could do to help encourage or inspire other people, but personal trainers are really expensive and not everyone has an hour to spend in the gym every day." Through No BS Active, Whitney not only sells fitness programmes but also workout clothes. This proved to be a very profitable venture for Whitney.
In 2016, Whitney added another source of income to her portfolio when she became a bestselling author. She released her memoir 'I Do It with the Lights On: And 10 More Discoveries on the Road to a Blissfully Shame-Free Life' which documents Whitney's journey to embracing her body and being confident in her own skin. Thanks to her strong belief in body positivity and hustle, Whitney amassed a fortune of $4 million!
Although Whitney does occasionally tend to hint at her financial woes on the show, her net worth of $ 4 million makes it hard for people to believe that she is undergoing any financial crisis.
'My Big Fat Fabulous Life' Season 9 is all set to make its big premiere on Tuesday, August 17, at 9/8c on TLC.