Ian Somerhalder has opened up about the financial crisis that forced him to walk away from one of television’s most lucrative careers, and sell houses, paintings, cars and watches to claw his way back.
The Vampire Diaries star told E! News that fraud and a badly built business left him and his wife Nikki Reed in an eight-figure hole, meaning the debt ran to at least $10 million.
“I left an insanely lucrative career in television after financial upheaval from building a business that I didn’t build properly. And due to fraud, it put my wife and I into an eight-figure hole. Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of. But Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
He was candid about the painful irony of the situation.
“I should’ve been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world [instead of] starting companies that were not gonna pay me possibly ever,” he said.
Somerhalder retired from acting seven years ago, after his Netflix series V Wars was cancelled in 2020.
Before that, he had spent years as one of television’s most recognisable faces, first as Boone Carlyle on Lost, then as vampire Damon Salvatore across all eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries on The CW.
He has previously credited Reed, whom he married in 2015, with saving him from what he called a “true nightmare.”
In an Instagram post at the time, he wrote that she had “devoted her life to getting me out of that mess and it almost killed her along the way. I am where I am BECAUSE of this woman.”
Looking back on the decision to leave acting, Somerhalder expressed no regret.
“I remember sitting with my management talking about this, saying, ‘Hey, this is the only thing I’ve ever known that’s ever sustained my family, and I’m walking away from it,’ at this sort of peak. I would much rather do this than go spend two months in some city, shooting a TV show away from my family. Once you reach a certain level, you’re like, ‘Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy and the big things.’ I don’t need to chase awards and anything that would make me feel better about myself.”
