What is Brandi Passante's Net Worth and Salary?
Brandi Passante is an American storage hunter and reality television star who has a net worth of $2 million. Born May 16, 1980, in Harris County, Texas, Brandi Passante achieved fame alongside her then long-term boyfriend Jarrod Schulz on the A&E reality TV show "Storage Wars". Passante and Schulz appeared in more than 260 episodes of "Storage Wars." Brandi and Jarrod were known as "The Young Guns" on the series. She has been a main cast member every season since the show's inception. Jarrod dropped off after season 13. They also starred in an A&E special and spin-off series, titled "Brandi & Jarrod: Married to the Job," in 2014. As we detail later in the article, a December 2012 lawsuit filed by her former co-star Dave Hester revealed the exact salaries of the cast. The lawsuit also revealed some salacious allegations, including that the found "treasures" were actually artificially placed by the show's producers and that the producers allegedly paid for Brandi to get a breast enhancement to boost ratings.
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Storage Wars
Jarrod got into the storage auction business on the suggestion of his aunt, and he and Brandi opened a thrift store in Orange County, California, called Now and Then Second Hand Store. Though "Storage Wars" originally just wanted Schulz, when the producers came to the store and met Passante, they decided that the show needed her as well.
When the series started, Brandi and Jarrod were portrayed as the hunters who had the lowest financial resources, but what Passante lacked in monetary resources, she made up for in scrappiness and subsequently impressed the show's viewers with her no-nonsense style of bidding. One of the reasons Brandi has such a "take no prisoners" attitude is because of her knowledge of what is at stake: "I have to turn around my scores quickly because they pay for the next auction. If I don't flip the items, I can't bid again," she has said.
As the show became more successful, Passante and Schulz were able to transform themselves into heavier hitters. Brandi and Jarrod opened a second Now and Then location in Long Beach, California, during the fourth season of "Storage Wars" (which aired in 2013), but the store closed in 2014. Passante and Schulz closed the original Orange County location in 2016.
Storage Wars Salary
Thanks to a 2012 lawsuit filed by her one-time "Storage Wars" co-star Dave Hester, we learned a lot of interesting details about the cast salaries and other controversial allegations.
The most salacious allegation in Hester's lawsuit directly involved Brandi. Hester alleged that the Storage Wars' producers paid for Brandi to get a breast enhancement to… enhance… the show's sex appeal.
Furthermore, he alleged that 100% of the treasures found in the storage units were in-authentically "placed" or "salted" by the producers and that after the scenes are shot, the cast members were actually forced to give the items back to the producers rather than re-sell them as was often portrayed or implied.
Finally, Hester laid out the salary he and other cast members were set to receive. The typical Storage Wars single season compensation was broken down as:
- $25,000 per episode with a guaranteed of 26 episodes, which works out to a minimum salary of $650 thousand per season
- $2,500 per month for travel expenses
- $124,500 expense account
- $25,000 signing bonus
In total, Hester reported that the average cast member earned a bit over $800,000 for a season. Presumably, that amount was split by Jarrod and Brandi.
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Personal Life
Brandi and Jarrod met in 1999, when she was hired by the carpet-cleaning company that Schulz worked for. The couple, who never officially married, had two children, son Cameron (born in 2003) and daughter Payton (born in 2005). Peyton was born deaf and with a cleft palate, and she had to undergo surgery several times as a child.
In a June 2020 interview with "The Dad Diary," Passante revealed that she and Schulz had ended their relationship "two years ago." In the interview, she also said that she had been diagnosed with COVID two weeks earlier and that she had been suffering from severe headaches and had lost her sense of taste.
In early 2013, Brandi successfully sued Hunter Moore, the operator of an adult website, for posting a video that allegedly showed Passante nude. She sought $2.5 million in damages but won just $750. The video featuring Brandi's lookalike was removed, and the website was later shut down.
In 2019, Passante served as the emcee of a charity event for Women's Own Worth, an organization that "empowers women and their families to regain their self-worth by enabling them to sustain an independent life after suffering the effects of trauma." The event raised $100,000 for the charity.
