You know her as Judge Judy, the feisty main character in the TV show of the same name. She ruled a mock courthouse in an arbitration-based reality show, where she presided over real-life disputes between family members, friends, colleagues and strangers. Her no-nonsense approach and legal and moral-issue themed reality show earned her US$47 million per year between 2012 and 2020.

Per Forbes, in 2018, she was the highest-paid TV host after selling the rights to the show’s library to CBS. She quit the show in 2020 after 25 years – but the popular judge returned to screens in a revamped version of her show called Judy Justice. The new courtroom drama is available on Amazon’s Freevee streaming service.

4. Jay Leno, 73

Estimated net worth: US$450 million

Who is country star Jelly Roll – and how did he meet his wife, Bunnie XO?

3. Phil McGraw, 73

Estimated net worth: US$460 million

Last year, he announced the CBS TV show would be ending. He was still averaging 2 million show viewers per day when he made the announcement, per Variety. McGraw then confirmed that he was launching his own family-oriented cable network Merit Street Media, per New York Post.

2. Ellen DeGeneres, 66

Estimated net worth: US$500 million

In 2022, DeGeneres signed off a 19-year TV run with a star-studded guest list that included Billie Eilish, Pink and Jennifer Aniston. Per Boston Herald, when Winfrey left her eponymous afternoon daytime TV chat show slot on America’s Channel 5, it was DeGeneres who took over this throne. She previously helmed her own morning chat show on the same TV station. Per Washington Post, her show had garnered more than 64 Daytime Emmy awards and aired more than 3,000 episodes by the time it wrapped.

But her TV history is not without scandal. In a Buzzfeed exposé published in 2020, 36 anonymous former employees claimed “harassment, sexual misconduct and assault from top producers”, with DeGeneres allegedly cultivating a toxic workplace.

Are eyebrow transplants worth it? Inside Hollywood’s cosmetic surgery trend

1. Oprah Winfrey, 70

Estimated net worth: US$3.5 billion

But Winfrey didn’t just make bank from her show – she launched her cable channel Own in 2011, later selling her stake in exchange for shares in 2020. In February, she confirmed that she had resigned from the board of Weight Watchers, donating her shares, worth an estimated US$6.34 million, to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, per Reuters.

Winfrey, who has been open about taking weight-loss medication, said she did not want there to be a perceived conflict of interest, referring to those who tried to lose weight without medication.

She returns to screens every now and then to host Oprah Special shows, in which she covers a variety of topics and holds in-depth interviews.