What is Geraldo Rivera's Net Worth and Salary?
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and talk show host who has a net worth of $20 million. Geraldo Rivera first rose to prominence in the 70's and 80's, winning awards for his investigative journalism reports on abused patients, John Lennon's death, and Elvis Presley's death. He went on to host a number of talk shows. His news entertainment career began in 1970 when he was hired as a reporter on WABC-TV. He earned international fame thanks to the eponymous show "Geraldo," which ran from 1987 to 1998. Two months after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, he jumped over to Fox News. For the next several years, Geraldo worked as a war correspondent, reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and more. He had 22 combat assignments during this period, most of which lasted weeks at a time and put him in very dangerous situations.
From 2009 to 2011, he hosted "Geraldo at Large" on Fox News. He served as a Fox correspondent on various Fox programs for the next decade. Beginning in 2018, Geraldo launched a radio show in Cleveland. During his career, Geraldo Rivera won seven Emmy awards and a Peabody award for his report on abused and neglected mentally retarded patients. As of this writing, he has authored eight books. He was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and The Celebrity Apprentice.
Early Life
Rivera was born on July 4, 1943, in New York City to parents Lillian and Cruz Rivera. His mother worked in a restaurant, while his father was a cab driver. He is of Jewish and Puerto Rican ancestry and was raised in a predominantly Jewish household. He grew up in Brooklyn and West Babylon, New York, and attended West Babylon High School. He later attended the State University of New York Maritime College and was a member of the rowing team there. He then transferred to the University of Arizona, where he received his bachelor's degree in business administration in 1965. He worked a few odd jobs and then enrolled at Brooklyn Law School in 1966, graduating in 1969.
Career
After law school, Rivera worked with organizations like the lower Manhattan-based Community Action for Legal Services and the National Lawyers Guild. He also got involved with the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican activist group. He was once interviewed about his work by WABC-TV news director Al Primo, who later offered Rivera a job as a reporter. Rivera accepted and initially completed the Summer Program in Journalism for Members of Minority Groups at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1970.
Rivera initially began working at WABC-TV in 1970 as a reporter for "Eyewitness News." In 1972, he won a Peabody Award for his report on the neglect and abuse of patients with intellectual disabilities at Staten Island's Willowbrook State School and Rockland County's Letchworth Village. This helped him gain more national attention, and he began to appear on national ABC programs like "20/20" and "Nightline."
In July of 1973, he was given his own show as part of ABC's "Wide World of Entertainment" program block called "Good Night America." The show tackled controversial topics of the era, like marijuana usage and Vietnam War draft dodgers. The show remained on air until 1977 and 33 total episodes were made. He continued working for ABC over the next years, sometimes working on high profile special pieces like "The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults."
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In 1987, Rivera began producing and hosting the daytime talk show "Geraldo," which ran for 11 years. The show featured various controversial guests and was often very dramatic and theatrical. During a 1988 episode, Rivera's nose was broken in an on-air brawl in which guests included white supremacists, Black activists, and militant Jewish activists. The show was so unlike other more traditional news and interview programs that "Newsweek" magazine dubbed it "Trash TV."
While still working on "Geraldo," Rivera also began hosting "Rivera Live" in 1994 on CNBC. The format of the show was an evening news and interview program that aired on weeknights. It remained on air until 2001. Rivera then left CNBC two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks to become the war correspondent for Fox News. In this role, he traveled to Afghanistan along with his brother Craig, who acted as his cameraman. He remained in this role for a year before being given his own show on Fox called "At Large with Geraldo Rivera." The format of the show was changed in 2005 and rebranded as "Geraldo at Large." The show remained on air until it was replaced in 2015 by "The Greg Gutfeld Show."
Rivera continues to regularly appear on various Fox News shows like "The Five" and "Fox and Friends." He has additionally competed on the 22nd season of "Dancing with the Stars," though he was the first to be eliminated from the show.
Rivera has published a number of books over the years. These include his first book in 1972 called "Willowbrook: A Report on How it Is and Why It Doesn't Have to Be That Way" as well as "Miguel Robles – So Far" and "Puerto Rico: Island of Contrasts," both in 1973. In 1977, he published "A Special Kind of Courage: Profiles of Young Americans." His 1992 book was his most personal yet, "Exposing Myself." In 2018, he published a memoir entitled "The Geraldo Show: A Memoir."
Fox News Salary
In September 2021, Geraldo signed a multi-year contract extension to remain at Fox News. The contract is believed to pay a salary of $4 million per year.
Personal Life
Geraldo Rivera has been married five times and has five children.
His first marriage was to Linda Coblentz in 1965. They remained married for four years before divorcing in 1969. He then married Edith Vonnegut in 1971, divorcing four years later in 1975. In 1976, he married Sherryl Raymond. They had a son together, Gabriel, in 1979 before divorcing in 1984. In 1987, he married Cynthia Cruickshank. They had daughters Isabella and Simone in 1992 and 1994, respectively. They attempted to have other children through IVF but then divorced in 2000.
He is currently married to Erica Michelle Levy. They married in 2003 and welcomed a daughter in 2005.
Rivera also has another son named Cruz, who was born in 1987, though the mother of Cruz has not been publicized. Rivera has also admitted to having a multi-year affair with Marian Javits, the wife of New York Senator Jacob Javits, until 1985.
In his free time, Rivera enjoys sailing. He is the owner and skipper of a sailing vessel called Voyager and has participated in the Marion-Bermuda Cruising Yacht Race four times over the years. He has also sailed the boat 1,400 miles up the Amazon River and around the world. This adventure was chronicled in six one-hour specials for The Travel Channel.
Real Estate
In May 2015, Geraldo and Erica paid $5.6 million for an apartment in New York City. They put the apartment up for sale in November 2016 for $7.2 million. They ultimately found a buyer for $6.1 million. He previously owned a smaller unit in the same building that he purchased for $3.4 million in 2011 and sold in 2015 for $3.96 million.
In 2017, Geraldo moved to his wife's hometown of Cleveland, where they purchased a $2.8 million 13,000-square-foot mansion. They still own a waterfront vacation home in Edgewater, New Jersey, which they tried to sell in 2015 for $3.75 million but ultimately removed from the market and still own to this day.
