Sometimes retirement can have a negative impact on your bank account. In the case of Vampire Diaries and Lost star Ian Somerhalder, an improper business deal post-retirement left him and his actress wife, Nikki Reed, with an eight-figure debt.
How He Accrued a Mountain of Debt
In an interview with E! News, the 47-year-old actor talked about how things came crashing down after a financial upheaval. I left an insanely lucrative career in television after financial upheaval from building a business that I didn't build properly. And due to fraud, it put my wife and I into an eight-figure hole, Somerhalder told E! News' Will Marfuggi on Tuesday.
The retired actor said things crumbled after making eight figures of personal guarantees to a bank for a clean energy company, which he didn't name. Seven years later, Somerhalder credits his 37-year-old wife for helping them regain financial stability. Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of, he said. But Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal, but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.
Wife's Role in Recovery
Somerhalder and the Twilight star married in 2015. At the time, he wrote on Instagram that his wife helped him out of a true nightmare while building a company and still acting. This woman here decided that she didn't want to see her husband ruin his body/mind/spirit and pulled up her bootstraps and got down in the trenches assembling a team to get to the negotiating table to find a way out, he wrote, per Variety. She devoted her life to getting me out of that mess and it almost killed her along the way. I am where I am BECAUSE of this woman.
It was a lesson learned for Somerhalder, stating he should have been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world, instead of starting companies that were not gonna pay me possibly ever, per E! News.
Actor Has Launched Multiple Businesses
Since the fiasco that left him in debt, Somerhalder has launched several successful businesses, which include Brother's Bond Bourbon with his former co-star, Paul Wesley. The Rules of Attraction star has sound advice for anyone looking to get into business with their spouse. Make it fun, he said. Remember, it's supposed to be fun. Find the beauty in all of it.
