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From ‘Girl Next Door’ to Reality TV Queen: How Kendra Wilkinson Has Made Her Money
For more than a decade, Kendra Wilkinson has been a familiar face on reality TV. Along the way, she’s parlayed her appearances into a comfortable net worth of $6 million.
Kendra’s life changed forever when she went shortly after graduating from high school in San Diego, she attended Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s 78th birthday party in 2004, naked, except for being covered in paint. She had previously done a glamour shoot in the look, and it had caught Hef’s attention. He soon asked her to move into the Playboy mansion and be one of his girlfriends.
For Kendra, it was a ticket out of her then-life but with strings attached. “I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m here!’ I was living in this small-ass apartment with this ugly-ass bitch. I was praying for anything to get me out of there. I moved in and weeks went by, and I didn’t know that sex was involved. I knew nothing about Playboy, I’d just graduated high school,” she later confessed while competing in 2014 on the reality show, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
Kendra, Bridget Marquardt and Hef’s main squeeze Holly Madison soon got their own E! reality series, The Girls Next Door, about life in the Playboy mansion. The trio went on to pose nude together three separate times in the magazine’s pictorials. Kendra starred on the show from 2004 through 2009, leaving when she got engaged to then-NFL player Hank Baskett. That opened the door for her own E! reality show, Kendra, which ran from 2009 through 2011.
The first season culminated in Kendra’s wedding to Hank at the Playboy Mansion. The second season featured Kendra as a first-time mom, after she gave birth to the couple’s son, Hank IV, on December 11, 2009.
Kendra became a regular across reality TV. In 2012, she competed on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, while the following year, she appeared on an episode of the network’s Celebrity Wife Swap. Kendra then went international, competing on the U.K.’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2014.
But being the star of her own reality show has always been Kendra’s bread and butter money-wise. From 2012 to 2017 she starred for six seasons on WE tv’s Kendra on Top. Her marriage suffered a hit after Hank had an affair in 2014 when Kendra was eight-months pregnant with their daughter, Alijah. The couple were later able to work through their issues and even appeared on WE tv’s Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. Ultimately, Kendra filed for divorce in 2018, and it was finalized a year later.
Now Kendra’s back on reality TV with a new life and a new career! She’s now a celebrity realtor and is starring in the Discovery+ series Kendra Sells Hollywood, debuting on November 17, 2021. The show will document the trials and tribulations of selling real estate for the high-profile L.A. firm Douglas Elliman. So, between the percentage she gets of her home sales and what she makes with a new reality show paycheck, her net worth should be heading upward!
