Ruth Westheimer Net Worth

What was Dr. Ruth Westheimer's net worth?

Dr. Ruth Westheimer was an American sex therapist, author and media personality who had a net worth of $4 million. Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, was a sex therapist, academic, radio and television host, and author who had a net worth of $4 million at the time of her death. Ruth Westheimer rose to fame in the 1980s with her call-in radio show "Sexually Speaking" and her television show "The Dr. Ruth Show," giving audiences sex advice in ways that were considered simultaneously serious, frank, and often humorous. Among her many other activities, Westheimer wrote over 40 books on human sexuality and sang on an album by Tom Chapin.

Early Life

Ruth Westheimer was born as Karola Ruth Siegel on June 4, 1928 in Wiesenfeld, Germany as the only child of Orthodox Jewish parents Irma and Julius. She was raised in Frankfurt. When she was ten years old, her father was taken by the Nazis, and she was subsequently sent to Switzerland to escape a similar fate. Westheimer ended up at an orphanage in Heiden, where she was among 300 Jewish children. She remained there for six years, during which time her mother and all of her other relatives were killed in the Holocaust.

After the end of World War II, Westheimer immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. She lived and worked on a number of kibbutzim there before moving to Jerusalem in 1948 to study early childhood education. In Jerusalem, Westheimer joined the Zionist paramilitary organization Haganah and was trained as a scout and sniper. On her 20th birthday, while fighting in the 1948 Palestine War, she was wounded in action by an exploding shell and was temporarily paralyzed. Westheimer spent several months recovering before she was able to walk again.

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Education

In 1950, Westheimer moved to France with her first husband and studied psychology at the Sorbonne. She later taught psychology at the university. In 1956, Westheimer immigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. There, she attended the New School, earning an MA degree in sociology in 1959. Westheimer went on to attend Teachers College, Columbia University, from which she obtained a Doctor of Education degree in 1970. She subsequently trained as a sex therapist under Helen Singer Kaplan at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Media Career

After many years as a sex therapist and educator, Westheimer rose to fame with her radio show "Sexually Speaking," which debuted on WYNY-FM in New York City in 1980. On the call-in show, which eventually became nationally syndicated, she fielded questions from listeners dealing with various topics related to sex and sexuality. In her serious and candid but also warm and humorous way, she gave advice about oral sex, masturbation, sexual positions, and avoiding STDs, among other subjects. "Sexually Speaking" was revolutionary for its frank talk of sex, busting contemporary taboos. It ran until 1990. Meanwhile, in 1984, Westheimer started hosting a number of television programs on the cable channel Lifetime, one of which became "The Dr. Ruth Show." Now a major star, Westheimer graced the cover of People magazine and acted in the French film "Une Femme ou Deux" in 1985. She even had a board game that was turned into a computer game in 1986. Westheimer continued hosting television programs throughout the 1980s and '90s, and made several appearances on late-night talk shows and game shows.

In 1990, Westheimer starred in the pilot for "Dr. Ruth's House," an ABC sitcom that never came to fruition. A few years later, she co-hosted a talk show in Hebrew called "Min Tochnit," and in 1995 she hosted a series of Playboy instructional videos under the title "Making Love." Throughout the decade, Westheimer appeared on such other shows as "One Life to Live," "Quantum Leap," and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"; she also starred in several television commercials, including ones for Pepsi and Honda. Kicking off the 2000s, Westheimer sang on Tom Chapin's album "This Pretty Planet." A couple of years later, she earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for her album "Timeless Tales and Music of Our Time." In the '00s, Westheimer also made frequent appearances on the children's television series "Between the Lions" and the game show "Hollywood Squares." The next decade, she appeared on such programs as "The Doctors," "The Today Show," and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," and was the subject of the documentary film "Ask Dr. Ruth."

(Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Cantor Fitzgerald)

Personal Life and Death

Westheimer married her first husband, Israeli soldier David Bar-Haim, in 1950. They divorced in 1955. Westheimer subsequently wed Dan Bommer, with whom she had a daughter named Miriam before divorcing in 1957. Her longest marriage was to her third and final husband, fellow Holocaust survivor Manfred Westheimer, to whom she was married from 1961 until his passing in 1997. They had a son named Joel who became a professor.

On July 12, 2024, Westheimer passed away at her home in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. She was 96 years of age.

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