What is Rhett McLaughlin's net worth?
Rhett McLaughlin is an American YouTube personality, comedian, and actor who has a net worth of $20 million. He is best known for being a founder of the YouTube partnership Rhett and Link. Along with Link Neal, the duo hosts a number of YouTube shows, most notably Good Mythical Morning. They are among the most popular and highest-paid YouTubers in the world. In 2020 alone, they earned a combined $20 million. Their business, Mythical Entertainment Co., employs 100 people. They operate a fan club where fans pay $10-20 per month to access exclusive content.
Early Life
Rhett McLaughlin was born in Macon, Georgia, in October 1977. He met Link Neal, his collaborator on the Rhett & Link YouTube channel, on the first day of first grade at Buies Creek Elementary School in 1984. His family had just recently moved to Buies Creek, North Carolina, from Macon, Georgia. Many years later, they wrote a song and made a documentary about their meeting called "Looking for Ms. Locklear." The two boys were required to stay in during recess as a punishment because both of them had written swear words on their desks. They bonded over this and drew mythical creatures such as unicorns, hence the name of their YouTube show, "Good Mythical Morning."
When Rhett and Link were 14, they wrote a screenplay called "Gutless Wonders" and started making a film based on it. They only shot a couple of scenes and never finished the film. The screenplay was read years later during a number of episodes of "Good Mythical Morning." In high school, Rhett and Link shot a 25-minute parody of the story of Oedipus Rex. Rhett was Oedipus, and Link was his father's servant. Also, in high school, the friends were members of a punk rock band called The Wax Paper Dogz.
Rhett holds the record at his old high school for most 3-pointers scored in a single basketball season, 77, at Harnett Central High School to this day.
Rhett started college at North Carolina State University in 1996. Link was his roommate in college. Rhett studied civil engineering and graduated magna cum laude in December 2000. Rhett worked at Black & Veatch for a while after college before quitting to pursue their YouTube channel full-time.
YouTube Career
Not long after graduating from college, Rhett and Link quit their jobs as engineers to focus on their YouTube channel. Today, at 42 and 41, respectively, this comedy duo are the OG YouTube stars. They host the popular daily show Good Mythical Morning, on which they eat things like Cheetos-flavored Pop-Tarts. They have four channels, a podcast, and two books.
Their first viral video was "Wolfpack or Tarheels?" uploaded on Rhett's personal YouTube channel in 2006 (no longer active) of his 3-year-old son Locke McLaughlin crying over the loss of the NC State Wolfpack and their rivalry with the North Carolina Tar Heels. YouTube wanted to feature this video on the home page, but the duo asked to have one of their songs featured instead, as they wanted to be known for their comedic work and not a viral video. After the video was removed for unknown reasons, the duo uploaded it to their channel, Rhett & Link.
Rhett and Link joined YouTube on September 18, 2008. As of January 2020, their channel Good Mythical Morning has over 6 billion views and more than 16 million subscribers. They describe their channel: "Welcome to Good Mythical Morning with Rhett & Link! Tune in every Monday-Friday to watch us eat truly unbelievable things, explore surprising new products and trends, compete in original games with celebrity guests, implement serious experiments in hilarious ways, and more."
After being featured on YouTube's homepage and the subsequent release of "The Facebook Song" (their most viewed video for several years), Rhett & Link established a presence on the web. In September 2012, Rhett & Link uploaded a video of them singing "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie, recording over 11 hours of footage starting at 7:25 pm ET on the Santa Monica Pier and ending the all-night recording at 6:30 am on Mt. Wilson.
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The most-watched videos on the Good Mythical Morning channel as of early 2020 are "Eating a Scorpion – Bug War Challenge," with over 27 million views, "Amazing Game Show Cheaters," also with over 27 million views and "World's Hottest Pepper Challenge – Carolina Reaper" with over 26 million views. As of June 2019, the most-watched videos on their channel are "My OCD (Song)" with more than 49 million views, followed by "Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek" with over 44 million views, and "I'm On Vacation (Song)" with over 29 million views.
The duo had a television show, "Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings," which aired on the Independent Film Channel. The show chronicled the quest of Rhett & Link as they traveled the country making local commercials for small businesses. The ten-part docu-comedy is based on their successful web series I Love Local Commercials.
Rhett and Link won a Shorty Award in 2016 for Best Web Series for Good Mythical Morning.
On February 22, 2019, it was revealed that Rhett and Link had acquired the Smosh brand (Smosh, Smosh Games, Smosh Pit & ElSmosh) after the channel's former parent company, Defy Media, had gone into liquidation. Ian Hecox, the co-founder of Smosh, explained that under the Mythical Entertainment banner, the channel would have full creative freedom and launch its own podcast, known as the SmoshCast. They reportedly paid $10 million to acquire SMOSH.
Personal Life
Rhett married Jesse Lane (now McLaughlin) on March 29, 2001. The couple has two sons, Locke and Shepherd, and lives in Los Angeles.
As a child, Rhett suffered from febrile seizures. His sons inherited the same trait.
Rhett and Link gave the commencement speech at their old high school in 2012 with Link Neal, where they performed a song and had the valedictorian smash a Charmander piñata.
Earnings
In 2019, Rhett and Link earned a combined $18 million from their various endeavors. That was enough to make them the fourth-highest YouTubers in the world for the year. In 2020 they earned $20 million.
Real Estate
In 2015, Rhett and his wife bought a 3,214 square foot house in the Los Angeles suburb of La Crescenta for $1.425 million. The home is a modern traditional style house built in 1978 with dark hardwood flooring, a sunken family room, a formal dining room, a kitchen with granite countertops, a large outdoor basketball court and a swimming pool and spa.
