What Is Joy Reid's Net Worth?
Joy Reid is an American cable television host, correspondent, writer, and producer who has a net worth of $4 million. Joy Reid serves as a political analyst for MSNBC, and she has hosted the shows "The Reid Report," "AM Joy," and "The ReidOut," on the network. Joy is also credited as a writer and producer on eight episodes of "The ReidOut," and she executive produced the documentaries "The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte hosts the Tonight Show" (2020) and "The Big Payback" (2023). Reid has published the books "Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide" (2014) and "The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story" (2019), and she edited "We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama" (2017). Joy has appeared in numerous episodes of the television shows "Martin Bashir," "Now with Alex Wagner," "Melissa Harris-Perry," "Hardball with Chris Matthews," "Meet the Press," "PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton," "Deadline: White House," and "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell."
Early Life
Joy Reid was born Joy-Ann M. Lomena on December 8, 1968, in Brooklyn, New York City. Her West Indian mother was a nutritionist and college professor, and her father was an engineer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a 2016 interview with "The Hollywood Reporter," Joy said of her parents, "Growing up my mother was very politically active as a Democrat, my father was actually a Republican but he wasn't an American citizen so he couldn't vote. My mother was an immigrant but she became a citizen." Reid grew up in a Methodist household with two siblings, and after her parents divorced, her father moved back to the Congo. Joy's sister, June Carryl, is a playwright and actress who has appeared in more than 60 film and television projects. Reid spent most of her youth in Denver, Colorado, and when she was 17 years old, she lost her mother to breast cancer and returned to Brooklyn to live with her aunt. Joy studied film at Harvard University, graduating in 1991.
Career
In 1997, Reid left her job at a New York business consulting firm to take a job on a morning show at the South Florida television station WSVN. In 2003, she left journalism because she was "personally opposed to the Iraq War and wanted to do something other than the way the media was covering and rooting for it," as she told "The Hollywood Reporter." Joy began working with the political action group America Coming Together, which opposed President George W. Bush and the Iraq War. She later worked as a talk radio host and was involved with Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. From 2006 to 2007, Reid co-hosted the WTPS morning radio show "Wake Up South Florida" with "James T" Thomas. She wrote a political column for the "Miami Herald" from 2003 to 2015, and she was the managing editor of the online news platform "The Grio" from 2011 to 2014.
From 2000 to 2014, Joy ran a political blog called "The Reid Report," and from 2014 to 2015, she hosted an MSNBC show of the same name. After it was cancelled, the network gave her a new role as a national correspondent. In 2016, she began hosting "AM Joy" and filling in for other MSNBC hosts, such as Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. In 2017, Twitter released a list of the most tweeted journalists from each of the "top tweeted news outlets," with MSNBC and Reid coming in at #4. In 2020, Joy became the host of the MSNBC commentary show "The ReidOut," making her the first Black female primetime anchor on cable. Joy has also hosted the podcasts "Reid This-Reid That" and "What to Reid," and she taught a "race, gender and media" course at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University.
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Personal Life
Joy married Jason Reid on February 27, 1997, and they have welcomed three children together. Jason is a documentary film editor.
In 2017 and 2018, a Twitter user with the handle @Jamie_maz shared posts that were published on Joy's former blog, "The Reid Report," between 2007 and 2009. The posts were described by "The Nation" as using "the trope of gay sex to mock politicians and journalists," and Joy subsequently apologized, saying that the posts were "insensitive, tone-deaf and dumb." When another batch of homophobic posts surfaced, Reid said that she didn't remember writing those posts and asked her lawyers to investigate whether her blog or archives could've been hacked. The controversy resulted in PFLAG, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, rescinding an award it had planned to give Joy, and "The Daily Beast" suspended her column.
In April 2018, blog posts surfaced that led to the Zionist Organization of America demanding that MSNBC fire Reid because she "espouses sinister anti-Semitic canards and gives voice to bizarre conspiracy theories." In June 2018, Joy issued an apology for the writings, stating, "I'm a better person today than I was over a decade ago. There are things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by, things I would have said differently, and issues where my position has changed."
Awards and Nominations
Reid was named a Knight Center for Specialized Journalism fellow in 2003, and the Women's Media Center honored her with the Carol Jenkins Visible and Powerful Media Award in 2016. Joy earned three NABJ Salute to Excellence Award nominations in 2018, and she has received NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Host in a News, Talk, Reality, or Variety (Series or Special) – Individual or Ensemble for "A.M. Joy" (2017) and Outstanding Host in a Talk or News/Information (Series or Special) – Individual or Ensemble for "The ReidOut" (2021 and 2022).
