The definition of an icon. Sheryl Lee Ralph’s net worth is a cumulative effort of all her hard work throughout her whole career. A veteran actress in the business, and an actual Dreamgirl at that, Ralph won the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2023 for her role as teacher Barbara Howard in the hit ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary. She is the second Black actress to receive the award after Jackée Harry in 1987.
Ralph rose to prominence when she starred as Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls in 1981 where she earned a nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. As well as an actress, Ralph ventured off into music in 1984 In the Evening and dropped the hit single of the same name that landed on the Billboard charts at the #6 spot. The star actress announced that she was going to sing the Black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at Super Bowl LVII. In an exclusive interview with STYLECASTER, Ralph dished about the best advice she got from landing the singing role. “I have an outstanding musical director in Adam Blackstone, who was also nominated for an Emmy and also a Grammy at the most recent Grammys,” she revealed. “And he said, ‘Miss Ralph if they didn’t believe in you handling this moment, they would not have asked you.’ ‘You’, meaning the NFL—they would not have asked you. So, the only thing you need to do when you get out there is get up on that stage and sing that is it. It’s two and a half million people and two and a half minutes. Make the best impression. That’s all there is to it.”
So what is Sheryl Lee Ralph’s net worth? Read more below to find out.
What is Sheryl Lee Ralph’s net worth?
Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
What is Sheryl Lee Ralph’s net worth? Sheryl Lee Ralph’s net worth is estimated to be $5 million according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Ralph started off her acting journey when she was 19. She graduated top of her class from Rutgers University in 1975—the youngest woman to graduate—initially studying pre-med but she pivoted towards literature and theater arts. She told STYLECASTER, “Being a child of the ’60s, my parents instilled in me the will and the determination to succeed.” She reminisced, “To carry on knowing that I—and I say this a lot—I had to get up off the sidelines of my own life and get involved. That’s exactly where that has evolved after all these years, just getting the job done doing what needs to be done in order to carry on.”
She made her dream a reality when she starred in the 1977 crime comedy film A Piece of the Action directed by Sidney Poitier. Since then she amassed a well-rounded 45-year career with film with To Sleep With Anger and Sister Act 2, television Designing Women, Moesha and Ray Donovan and theater Dreamgirls, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Wicked.
She told the New York Times in September 2022 about how she was excited about her Emmy win. “It has been nonstop,” she gleamed. “But it’s work and celebration, work and celebration. The main thing is work because, you know, we had to go straight back to work the very next day, there was no time off and there’s no day off we’re working on Saturday because we have to make up that day [for Monday’s Emmys].” She continued, saying that her mentality was the same on either outcome. I was a winner going into it. And I’m a winner coming out of it. I got to this place at this time in my life and everything always works out for me. So whether that trophy is in my hand or somebody else’s hand, I am still a winner no matter what. And if I lose, this time, maybe it wasn’t for me, but it will be for me some other time. And if I’m the winner, I’m going to say to you: I told you so. Everything always works out for me.”
Image: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Talk about manifesting. “I am an artist, and I know where my voice belongs!” she sang during her Emmys acceptance speech. Ralph got her flowers after her historic win from many stars like Oprah and the list goes on and on. “Let’s see. Lena Waithe, Cynthia Erivo, Hannah Waddingham, Yvonne Orji, Beyoncé sent beautiful flowers with a beautiful note, Kid Cudi. There’s just so many, she told the Hollywood Reporter. “To have so many young artists reach out to me saying things like, ‘Thank you for your career, thank you for being you, thank you for what you said’ — it’s been wonderful. Issa Rae! To get flowers, literally and figuratively, wow.”
The Abbott Elementary actress also takes her part in activism as much as she could. She founded the D.I.V.A Foundation in 1990, which is a nonprofit that works as a memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS while in the original Broadway company of Dreamgirls. The organization focuses on generating resources and coordinating activities to create awareness of and combat HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. Right after her Emmy win, she helped Jackson State University during the annual Mary E. Peoples Scholarship Luncheon and raised more than $300,000. “If you can, help somebody else because I really believe the future of the world is in some of these classrooms that we are very slow to help,” she said. “You know, we don’t know who is going to cure cancer, [it] could be right here at Jackson State.”
What was Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Super Bowl salary?
Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
What was Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Super Bowl salary? Sheryl Lee Ralph reportedly made nothing for singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at the Super Bowl 2023, between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. In 2016, NFL spokesperson Joanna Hunter said, “We do not pay the artists. We cover expenses and production costs.” According to Forbes, the large production is merely just promotion for the artists as a free commercial for headlining acts, one that airs in front of more than 100 million people worldwide.
Courtesy of Pocket
For more about Sheryl Lee Ralph, check out her book Redefining Diva: Life Lessons from the Original Dreamgirl. In these highly personal reflections, Sheryl Lee Ralph reveals her take on her supposed feuds with Diana Ross and Jennifer Holliday, on auditioning for Sidney Poitier, why she exited so controversially from the TV series Moesha, and how she signed away her rights to Dreamgirls for a dollar. She uses her life story to illustrate her vision: black, white, or any other color of the rainbow, a true Diva is a person of strength, character, and beauty that radiates from within. Not just a memoir, Redefining Diva will inspire every woman (and man) who reads it to examine the potential in their own life.
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