Martin Lawrence Net Worth

How much is Martin Lawrence worth?

Net Worth:$100 Million
Profession:Professional Actor
Date of Birth:April 16, 1965 (age 57)
Country:Germany-born American
Height:
5 ft 7 in (1.71 m)

About Martin Lawrence

Martin Lawrence is one of the most famous and biggest comedy actors of the 90s and 2000s. Movie franchises such as Big Momma’s House and Bad Boys made him millions. While he took somewhat of a hiatus from his acting career after 2015, he returned four years later in 2019 for a small role in The Beach Bum and Bad Boys 4 is currently in pre-production.

American comedian, actor, producer, talk show host, writer, and former Golden Gloves boxer Martin Lawrence has an estimated net worth of $100 million dollars, as of 2023. In 1987 Lawrence started his career playing Maurice Warfield, in What’s Happening Now!!

Martin was born in 1965, in Germany. He was named after the late great civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.. Martin’s father was an army officer at the time and stationed near Frankfurt. His mother worked all kinds of jobs after his parents divorced. The family was large, Martin has five siblings, and at times his mother struggled to make ends meet.

Few people are aware of it but Martin Lawrence was a very talented boxer in his youth. He was one of the top amateur boxers in his weight class and was a competitor in the Golden Gloves competitions. Which is interesting because he is a person who can completely let go of any tough guy image and truly be himself delivering excellent comedy.

His early comedy career can be traced back to living in Washington D.C. The scene there wasn’t as large as it was in other cities. To support himself while working on his comedy career, Martin worked odd jobs on top of his budding comedy career. He later moved to New York on the suggestion of other comics. At the time, New York was the best place to be and Martin began to hone his talents as well as get connections in the comedy world.

Soon after arriving in New York, Martin started to perform regularly in the iconic, legendary comedy venue The Improv. Soon after that, he entered a talent show called Star Search. He was great on the show. Even if he didn’t win, he made it to the final round and made a lasting impression on various TV executives. They offered him various acting jobs on a few short-lived TV shows. Martin Lawrence enjoyed the switch to acting, and as he stated, it was “nice to finally receive a steady paycheck”.

His debut role in a feature length film was as Cee in Do The Right Thing, in 1989. He also starred with Eddy Murphy in the movie Boomerang. His next big break was when he appeared on the TV show, Def Comedy Jam.

Following his success on Def Comedy Jam, a HBO show that launched many comedy careers, including Dave Chappelle and Chris Tucker, Lawrence was finally offered a sitcom of his own. It was named Martin and aired on Fox for 5 seasons with a total of 134 episodes.

During its five year run, and during the rise of FOX as a TV network, Martin was one of the highest-rated shows on the network. Season 1 had average viewers of 11.4 million. Martin Lawrence played an eccentric and egocentric DJ on a fictional radio station, who would often annoy his loved ones and learn valuable lessons along the way.

While the sitcom went strong for three seasons, by season 4, the average number of viewers had dropped to 6.7 million. After that number declined again to just 6 million for season 5, the show was finally cancelled. Undeterred, Lawrence did what the most TV stars did in the 90s, tried to transition to movies.

In the first few years of his film career, he was mostly seen as the Robin to somebody else’s Batman. He would be the sidekick in various comedies staring some of the greats of that time, like Eddy Murphy, Danny DeVito and Tim Robbins. His movies were popular, even if not always a success critically, they were often commercially successful.

One of the biggest was Big Momma’s House (2000) which earned $174 million dollars from a $30 million dollar budget. In the movie, Lawrence played an FBI agent who had to go undercover as an archetypal Afro-American grandmother. When accumulating the box office earnings of the franchise, which included two later films, Big Momma’s House 2 and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. The box office earnings were $397.8 million. Lawrence is estimated to have earned over $25-30 million dollars in total from his involvement.

Another iconic role for Martin Lawrence was co-starring Will Smith in the movie Bad Boys (1995).

In total, the Bad Boys franchise grossed $841.2 million dollars. Bad Boys released in 1995 grossed $141.4 million. Bad Boys II in 2003 grossed $273.3 million. Bad Boys for Life released in 2020 grossed $426.5 million. Martin Lawrence earned an estimated $45 million from his starring in the three movies.

Lawrence’s Total Net Worth

Martin Lawrence’s career has been incredibly lucrative considering he has appeared in less than 40 films and TV series. He has also earned from his producing, writing and other behind the scenes work, as well as from appearances that he has made as himself. Mostly, however, he has earned from movie paychecks like the $20 million dollars he earned for his role as Miles Logan in Blue Streak way back in 1999.

In total, it is estimated that Lawrence’s career earnings are at around $150 million dollars. He will have had to pay around 48% on that amount however, that is, considering he earned a large chunk of his earnings in the 2000s when the federal tax rate was capped at just 35%. However he was still living and working in California which had tax rates of around 10%.

Before paying his taxes, however, Lawrence will have been able to deduct his business costs as actors work as self-employed and accrue huge costs, most notably, in agent fees. Therefore his $150 million dollars income, will have become $136.5 million, having paid $10-17 million dollars in business expenses. That amount, will have then become $70.98 million dollars, having paid $65.52 million dollars in taxes.

Martin Lawrence married Patricia Southall in 1995 but the divorced two years later in 1997. There will have still been a divorce settlement, possibly in the region of $2-4 million dollars for Martin to pay. That is, considering they have one child together, Jasmine Page Lawrence, and they were high earning years in his career. In 2010 Lawrence married Shamicka Gibbs and again, two years, later they were divorced. They had two children together, Iyanna Faith and Amara Trinity Lawrence. It is estimated that another $2-4 million dollars has gone in that direction, as well.

In terms of investing his career earnings, Lawrence has invested and earned money from real estate. Like the property he sold in Beverly Hills for $17.2 million in 2013. Overall it is estimated that Lawrence is up on his real estate and other investments by about $34-42 million. That is including money that he has invested elsewhere, likely in the stock market. While he may have used a firm to manage some of his investments in securities, which will have included additional costs, the market’s performance has been excellent and therefore likely so have Lawrence’s returns.

In his personal life Martin has likely spent $5-7 million dollars of his career earnings but also probably possesses assets valued at around $1-3 million, not including investment assets. Therefore, it is estimated that Martin Lawrence has a net worth of around $100 million dollars.

Summing-Up

The fact that Martin Lawrence grew up in a military family, and later on in poor, harsh circumstances, may have actually attributed to the work ethic that he would develop later in life. It was this childhood that pushed him to excel at everything he tried. From a talented boxer to a stand-up comedian who was one of the biggest TV stars in the 90s and one of the biggest comedy actors in the 2000s. In 2003 he was awarded his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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