Ian Somerhalder has opened up about the financial crisis that forced him to abandon one of television’s most lucrative careers and sell houses, paintings, cars and watches to get his way back.
THE Vampire Diaries the star said E! News This fraud and a poorly built business left him and his wife Nikki Reed in an eight-figure hole, meaning the debt was at least $10 million.
“I left an incredibly lucrative career in television after financial upheaval from starting a business that I hadn’t built properly. And because of the fraud, it put my wife and I in an eight-figure hole. Eight figures is a tough hole to get out of. But Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of that deal, but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
He was frank about the painful irony of the situation.
“I should have walked away from one of the biggest TV shows in the world [instead of] building businesses that might never pay me,” he said.
Somerhalder retired seven years ago, after his Netflix series V Wars was canceled in 2020.
Before that, he spent years as one of television’s most recognizable faces, first as Boone Carlyle on Lostthen as the vampire Damon Salvatore over the course of eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries on The CW.
He previously credited Reed, whom he married in 2015, with saving him from what he called a “real nightmare.”
In an Instagram post at the time, he wrote that she had “dedicated her life to getting me out of this 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 the profession, Somerhalder expressed no regrets.
“I remember discussing this with my management and saying, ‘Hey, this is the only thing I’ve ever known that has ever supported my family, and I’m moving away from that,’ at that kind of peak. I would much rather do that than go spend two months in a city, film a TV show away from my family. Once you get to a certain level, you’re like, ‘Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of agriculture, food, energy and great things. “I don’t need to chase rewards or anything that will make me feel better about myself.”
