Celebrities Who Have Confessed To Living Surprisingly Modest Lives

As of 2020, Keanu Reeves has amassed an eye-watering personal net worth of around $400 million, according to the Wealthy Persons website. And he is an icon all over the world, beloved for his roles in the John Wick, The Matrix, and Bill & Ted franchises. However, Reeves has always been one of the humble celebrities out there, and he regularly gives away vast portions of his wealth.

He told Hello! magazine in 2003, “Money is the last thing I think about. I could live on what I have already made for the next few centuries.” In fact, Reeves donates to PETA and has started a cancer foundation. What’s more, he reportedly worked out a deal for The Matrix sequels so the costume design and special effects teams would get some of his money.

These days Kristen Bell is best known for playing Eleanor Shellstrop on the wildly acclaimed NBC series The Good Place. She also voices Princess Anna in the hugely successful Frozen franchise and has appeared in films such as Bad Moms and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It has all led to a net worth of $25 million.

In a 2012 appearance on Conan, Bell excitedly extolled the virtues of clipping coupons. “I use a lot of coupons,” she revealed. “The best coupon you can get, possibly in the world, is the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon.” The host joked that Bell was a walking, talking Bed, Bath & Beyond advertisement, but she promised she was genuinely enamored with their savings.

Sarah Jessica Parker is, and always will be, Carrie Bradshaw in the eyes of fans. The actress became a household name while playing the character across six seasons of HBO’s Sex and the City. She later reprised the role in two films. According to Wealthy Persons, Parker’s personal net worth is more than $110 million.

Despite her wealth, Parker told Parade in 2008 that she never buys her son new clothes. Instead, he wears her nephew’s old clothes. And in 2018 she reiterated this statement to The Hollywood Reporter, but this time it was regarding her daughters. “My mother saved everything I wore as a child,” said the actress, “so my daughters wear my hand-me-downs.”

In a 2003 The Observer interview, The Rolling Stones’ frontman amusingly outlined his attitude to money. He said, “Those of us brought up in the 50s were taught to be frugal.” He then added, “We’re not brought up like Puff Daddy to be taking 30 free-loading friends to the south of France.”

Jagger continued, “The truth is, most English people, whether they’re rich or not so rich, just don’t behave like that.” It’s clear that Jagger, who is worth around $400 million in 2020, is not someone who enjoys spending his cash frivolously. In fact, one of his many ex-partners, Marianne Faithfull, accused him of being “pretty tight” in her autobiography.

After seven seasons playing the odious Pete Campbell on AMC’s Mad Men, Vincent Kartheiser has amassed a net worth of $6 million, which he shares with his wife, Alexis Bledel. Since the show ended in 2015, he has had other TV roles in The OA and Das Boot. However, he most definitely doesn’t live like a millionaire.

You see, in 2010 he told The Observer, “My house is just a wooden box.” He was referring to the one-bedroom bungalow he lived in for the entire show’s run. At one point, he didn’t even have a toilet. He added that he disliked being sent or gifted free swag, so he gave most of it away to charity stores or friends.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer actress Sarah Michelle Gellar had an estimated net worth of $25 million in 2020. She is married to actor Freddie Prinze Jr., and the couple has two children together. Gellar’s acting roles have been few and far between in the last few years, as she has given her attention to Foodstirs, the baking brand she co-founded in 2015.

Gellar and her family make a point to shop frugally in the grocery store, in spite of their wealth. She told Self magazine in 2011, “We shop at Whole Foods, but we ask which fish is on sale. On sale doesn’t mean it’s bad!” She added, “I clip coupons all the time. Why should you pay more for something that someone else is paying less for?”

In 2020 America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) creator and presenter Tyra Banks has amassed an estimated net worth of $110 million. However, over the course of her career, she has always been careful with money. After ANTM had been on the air for three years in 2006, she still worried about it all going away. “I have a poverty demon,” Banks told Forbes.

Banks continued, “I’ll ask my accountant if I can afford something, and he’ll say, ‘What are you talking about?.’” Growing up with a single mother in a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles made Banks all too aware of the value of money. For instance, in 2008 she told The New York Times Magazine that she repainted her office walls, rather than replace the cream carpet she hated. Why? Because it was cheaper.

Jennifer Lawrence’s ascent to fame was so meteoric that by 2015 she was the highest-paid actress in the world. Now, that was incredible considering she only broke through five years earlier with the low-budget Winter’s Bone. But The Hunger Games and X-Men franchises cemented her as a star. As of 2020, she has a personal estimated net worth of $150 million.

Lawrence’s down-to-earth personality has endeared her to the public, and this applied even after she hit it big. In 2014 she told Fabulous magazine, “I was raised to have value for money, to have respect for money, even though you have a lot of it.” She admitted, “I still drive the same car I’ve been driving for a long time, and I haven’t bought a house yet.”

These days Julia Roberts chooses her film and television roles very carefully. With an estimated net worth of $220 million, she isn’t in a position where she needs to work to pay the bills. Mostly, she prefers living a quiet family life in Malibu with her husband and three children.

Anyway, Roberts shops for her own groceries and refuses to employ an in-house butler, nanny, or chef. In fact, she loves cooking for her family. “I think people confuse the idea of having this fantastical job with somehow being a fantastic individual,” Roberts told Harper’s Bazaar in 2017. “Like, ‘How could you possibly make breakfast?’ Well, hunger is a good motivator!”

Perhaps the reason Dave Grohl, ex-drummer for Nirvana and frontman for Foo Fighters, exudes classic cool-guy energy is because he seems to be a genuinely cool guy. For someone who created some of the most iconic music of the past few decades, his life is curiously devoid of lavish displays of fame and fortune...

In fact, the Foo Fighters frontman told The Red Bulletin that his cash "goes straight into [his] bank account, where it turns all moldy and smelly." The rock star isn't pulled in by fads or trends. "I drive a family car — not a monster SUV, but a family car that fits five people," Grohl told The Red Bulletin. "I’ve got a house that is just big enough, too."

Hilary Swank has won two Best Actress Academy Awards in her career, for 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby. Her personal fortune is estimated to be around $50 million. But given she grew up in a trailer park, she isn’t someone who is known to throw her money around with wild abandon.

Indeed, in 2010 she told InStyle magazine, “I would use a coupon – just because I have some money now, I wouldn’t? That doesn’t make sense to me. I see it as a dollar in my pocket. People around me laugh because I have a deep understanding of what a dollar gets you and how far to make that dollar go.”

Big Little Lies star Shailene Woodley is worth an estimated $12 million. She rose to fame as the lead in the Divergent franchise, which was based on the hugely successful YA book series. However, Woodley is known to live very frugally. In fact, in 2015 she told The Telegraph, “I live a vagabond lifestyle.”

At that point in her career, Woodley had no permanent address and would simply stay at friends’ houses or in hotels when working in LA. She believed that if she wasn’t an actress, she’d “do something with food. Finding seeds, planting seeds, watching them grow, harvesting the fruits, cooking the fruits, eating them.” Also, she made her own beauty products, including toothpaste, eyeshadow, and lip stain.

Although Tobey Maguire’s fame has waned since his heyday in Spider-Man, he still has a net worth of $90 million. These days he mainly makes movies as a producer, having founded his own company in 2012. This move is very much in-line with what he told Parade magazine in 2007 about how he viewed his career.

“When I first started being successful at this, financially speaking, I was very conservative with my money,” Maguire said. “You know those Lotto winners who win big and then blow through all the money? That would never happen to me.” He then explained how he never wanted to be in a position where he was forced to take on projects he didn’t care about, simply to pay for a lavish lifestyle.

Country singer-songwriter Carrie Underwood is worth a staggering $250 million. She first shot to fame after winning the fourth season of American Idol in 2005. Then her debut album became the highest-selling solo female debut in country music history. She married NHL player Mike Fisher in 2010 after they'd met at one of her gigs a few years earlier.

Despite her wealth, Underwood told Rachel Ray Magazine in 2012 that her favorite place to eat with Fisher is Subway. “I should have a VIP card,” she laughed. “When we were dating, Mike and I went there so often that we joked it was ‘our place.’” She also revealed that she does their weekly grocery shop herself and uses coupons to get the best deals.

Comedian Tiffany Haddish is a star on the rise in Hollywood, thanks to popular roles in movies such as Girls Trip and Keanu. She has a net worth of $8 million, but her past has taught her to be careful with money. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that she was a struggling comic living in her car.

Haddish told People in 2017, “I’m probably going to be cheap with my money for a long time. You know I’ve been homeless, so it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s here now but will it be here in five years?’” She also makes sure to get her money’s worth out of expensive clothes. She even wore the same Alexander McQueen dress to several ritzy events.

British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran is a global music superstar and has a net worth of $200 million. And his records have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide, making him one of the biggest selling artists of all time. Yet, part of Sheeran’s brand is his scruffy dress sense and relatable, regular-guy persona. He’s one of us... just much wealthier.

In a 2014 interview with the Irish Examiner, Sheeran explained that he has an allowance that he lives on and doesn’t dip into the rest of his riches. For day-to-day use, he still had his old student account. He’s also a thrifty movie buff and told a tale of buying 200 DVDs on Amazon. He said, “They’re pretty much giving away DVDs for free these days.”

The 2010s were a great decade for Matthew McConaughey, seeing the actor successfully move back into dramatic roles, instead of rom coms. He won the Best Actor Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014 and also took on dark, interesting projects such as HBO’s True Detective and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. His net worth, as of 2020, is $110 million.

McConaughey’s persona has always been that of a down-to-earth hippie, and he approaches his work nowadays with no airs or graces. When shooting a film, he says, “It’s as stripped down as it gets. I live in my trailer. I wake up and I’ve got a pair of pajamas and one pair of pants. I have a singular focus.” He also eschews the Hollywood lifestyle, choosing a family home close to his mother in Texas.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the fifth richest person in the world, with an unimaginable net worth of $75 billion. He could afford to live a lifestyle that few could even comprehend but chooses a low-key manner instead. And he’s well known for his trademark casual dress sense, which rarely extends to more than a t-shirt, hoodie, and jeans.

Zuckerberg has also said he will donate 99 percent of his Facebook shares to good causes over the course of his life. He didn’t even stage an elaborate wedding day. Instead, he chose to have a small ceremony in the back garden of his Palo Alto home in 2012. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, then had McDonald’s for their first meal as a married couple.

In 2019 Stefani Germanotta, a.k.a. Lady Gaga, won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy. This made her the first woman in history to win all four trophies in one year. The awards all stemmed from the song “Shallow” from her movie A Star Is Born. As of 2020, Gaga is worth $350 million — but isn’t someone who flaunts her wealth.

In 2016 she publicly condemned fame and money at a surprise London gig. “I have traveled the world and seen the happiest people in the poorest parts of the world. Their values are intact. In the richest homes, I meet the saddest and most depressed people.”

Singer, dancer, and television personality Nicole Scherzinger knows the value of a dollar. She told Female First in 2011, “I grew up with no money so I still get the best bargains at the grocery store... but at the same time if there’s an Yves Saint Laurent purse that I want, I’ve got to have it right now.”

The former Pussycat Doll had a net worth of $15 million in 2020. She could be forgiven for being much more carefree with her money. But she also spoke in 2011 about how she and Lewis Hamilton, her boyfriend at the time, would craft each other gifts instead of splashing out for extravagant items.

In 2009 Renee Zellweger told Glamour, “I have immigrant parents who came to this country with nothing, and my dad worked his ass off to support our family. He made so many sacrifices, but we always had enough. I’ve never been the sort of person who takes things for granted, and I’m not an acquisitions girl.”

This is a keen insight into the outlook of Zellweger, who had a net worth of around $65 million in 2020. In 2016 Bridget Jones’s Baby co-star Debra Gillett told Vogue, “There were no grand trailers or alternative arrangements made for ‘the leading lady.’ She sat around on boxes eating her lunch out of a disposable carton like the rest of us.”

Though he's one of the richest men in the world, he still lives in the house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. His splurges are limited to McDonald's sandwiches and Cherry Cokes. Maybe sticking to the dollar menu is how he got so rich!

This power couple is raising their kids in a humble household, where they even have a rule to not give gifts on Christmas. They were frugal before they became parents too. They bought their wedding rings on Etsy for a sum total of $200.

Just like her pirate counterpart, Knightley keeps her treasure chest buried under lock and key. She notably cut costs at her wedding by only inviting 12 guests and wearing a dress she already owned.

Danny Lloyd gave film fans everywhere nightmares when he appeared as creepy, psychic namesake Danny in 1980’s The Shining. Despite his start in horror cinema, though, Lloyd went on to enjoy an altogether more genial career after giving up acting aged 14. The former child actor can now be found in Louisville working as a biology teacher, of all things.

Remember Charlie in the original Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory? That was Peter Ostrum. But the super-talented young star decided that fame and fortune weren’t for him. He even declined a three-film deal in order to maintain a normal life. Instead, Ostrum pursued a career as a veterinarian, and he currently works looking after animals in New York State.

Vanilla Ice was once the next big thing, but now he’s flourishing in a new career in real estate. After the success of his ’90s hit “Ice Ice Baby,” you see, Ice – a.k.a. Robert Van Winkle – wisely invested in property. Then, in 1998, he went into the business full time! And Ice credits this career move with having given his life meaning after his time as a musician ended.

Since divorcing his wife Kate in 2009, reality star Jon Gosselin has fallen on pretty hard times. Following his departure from Jon & Kate Plus 8, in fact, he’s worked several odd jobs, including fitting solar panels and waiting tables. But he’s since failed to find steady employment. In 2014 he was even let go from a serving job for tardiness.

Without a doubt, hunky Jonathan Bennett was the fetchest thing about the 2004 hit Mean Girls. But since playing Regina George’s ex-boyfriend Aaron, he’s somehow slipped out of the spotlight. In fact, he was once spotted working as a cycling instructor in a Los Angeles gym. He's since pivoted back to Hollywood as a host and reality show contestant, however!

After starring as Darla in 1994’s The Little Rascals, Brittany Ashton Holmes grew disgruntled with fame. The former actress even insisted on MySpace that her performance in that movie is “really embarrassing to watch.” We beg to disagree... Anyway, Holmes has since been seen working at a Starbucks in Los Angeles. She has also studied for a political science degree.

Even though her 2009 debut album shifted 14 million units, Susan Boyle apparently once fancied a change of direction. In 2014, you see, the “I Dreamed a Dream” singer inquired about a minimum pay position at a Scottish betting shop. “We were all in shock,” the store’s manager told The Sun at the time. Not half as much as Boyle’s fans were, perhaps...

Julia Stiles may have been massive during the 1990s, but she didn’t revel in her newfound fame. She told NME in 2020, “I guess I ended up taking a break just as my career was taking off. It was good to slow things down a bit in my 20s.” And while she still acts from time to time, she focuses most of her attention on two important jobs: philanthropy and being a mom.

Starring in 232 episodes of CSI: Miami made David Caruso something of an icon — and an internet sensation. After the show ended in 2012, though, Caruso effectively retired from acting and instead turned his attention to art. As well as creating his own pieces, the former actor also opened up a gallery in Westlake Village, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Two years after the end of his sitcom The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Dylan Sprouse shocked fans in 2013 when he was found working in a restaurant. But rather than admit defeat, the former Disney star insisted on his blog that he held the job solely to “feed [his] over-bountiful video game addiction.” He makes mead now, too!

If you were an avid Melrose Place fan back in the ’90s, then you’ll definitely recognize Billy Campbell actor Andrew Shue. And while he could have pursued a career in professional soccer after leaving sunny West Hollywood, he became an internet entrepreneur instead. That’s just as well, as he helped set up CafeMom – meaning he’s now thought to be worth an impressive $100 million.

Little Mara Wilson famously portrayed the title character in the 1996 movie adaptation of Matilda. But in a twist that would make Miss Honey proud, the grown-up star is now a writer. In 2016 Wilson told NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, “I feel like I’m sort of in control of my own story and my own narrative... Making up stories and telling stories, and telling true stories, has always been what I wanted to do.”

Phoebe Cates may have once been a bright young thing, but she hasn’t actually appeared on screen since 2001. In 2015 she lent her voice-acting talents to the video game Lego Dimensions, but that’s about it as far as gigs go. So, where is she now? Well, she opened a boutique in New York, for one. She also works with diabetes charities, as her son Owen has the condition. And because she’s married to Kevin Kline, she can still be spotted at Hollywood shindigs. Talk about having the best of both worlds!

As a young star in the making, Ariana Richards played Lex in the iconic blockbuster Jurassic Park. And while she’s since become a successful artist, she’s still up for returning to the screen if the right role comes along. In a 2020 interview for Amblin Partners, Richards revealed, “Even though I’ve been focusing on art for a long time – since I was in college – and made that such a focus and priority, I absolutely adore acting.”

As the adorkable Paul Pfeiffer in The Wonder Years, Josh Saviano scooped a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. But while you’d assume such an honor would be enough to keep him in showbiz, he turned to the law instead. Yep, just like Paul! Yet Saviano hasn’t completely stopped acting. In 2015 he was in a few episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – as, funnily enough, an attorney.

Danica McKellar spent a lot of her adolescence playing Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years. Then she discovered her true passion in life: mathematics. She has a degree in the subject from UCLA and now writes books for children to make math more accessible for them. McKellar’s had a very successful second career, in fact.

As The Goonies’ Chunk, Jeff Cohen forged his place in movie history. So, where do you go from there? Training to become a lawyer, of course! Cohen now has his own firm and looks very, very different from how he was as a kid. He’ll also only do the Truffle Shuffle if you buy him drinks first.

Once, Meg Ryan was everywhere. In fact, she’s still fondly remembered for her performances in much-beloved comedies such as When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail. In Ryan’s opinion, however, the R-rated sexual thriller In The Cut put an end to her career. And as she eventually became sick of the acting industry, she stopped taking major roles. Now, she works as a film writer instead.

One-time teen heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. has switched casting calls for casserole dishes. Yes, really! The I Know What You Did Last Summer star is now more of a chef – the career goal he had before he turned to acting. In 2016 he even released a cookbook entitled Back to the Kitchen.

Rick Moranis sadly retired from acting after his wife Ann Belsky passed away from cancer. For the following 23 years, the beloved comedian then spent life as a full-time single father to his two kids. But it appears Moranis is now ready to dip his toes back into the Hollywood pool. In 2020 he announced that he would be coming back to appear in at least one more major movie: a follow-up to his hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

If anyone looked set to join the pantheon of movie greats, it was Gene Hackman. He has two Academy Awards to his name, after all, as well as a string of highly acclaimed performances. But in the 2000s Hackman decided not to cement his legacy. Simply put, he retired from acting and became a novelist instead. And in 2020 the star explained his choice to Empire magazine, saying, “I think it was a natural transition. One asks oneself questions as an actor like, ‘Where am I coming from? Where am I going? What do I want?’... As a writer, you can start the same way.”