Shonda Lynn Rhimes, professionally known as Shonda Rhimes, is a screenwriter, producer, and novelist for American television. She is best known for being the creator, head writer, and executive producer of the political thriller Scandal and the television medical dramas Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practise.
Along with the ABC television programs such as Off the Map, How to Get Away with Murder, The Catch, and the Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Station 19, Rhimes also served as the executive producer for these programs.
Rhimes appeared on Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential persons in the world (the Time 100) in 2007, 2013, and 2021. She released Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person, a memoir, as her debut book in 2015.
The readers of Shonda are curious to know more about their favorite author such as her net worth, and personal and professional life. In this article you will learn all these factors, so keep reading this article till the end.
Who Is Shonda Rhimes? When She Started Her Career?
Rhimes is the sixth child of Vera P. (née Cain), a college professor, and Ilee Rhimes, Jr., a university administrator, Rhimes was born in Chicago, Illinois. While raising their six children, her mother continued her study and received a Ph.D. in educational administration in 1991.
Her dad, an MBA holder, was appointed chief information officer (CIO) at the University of Southern California and held the position until 2013.
Rhimes shared a home with her two older brothers and three older sisters in Park Forest South (now University Park, Illinois). She claims that she showed an early preference for storytelling. She volunteered in a hospital while still in high school, which sparked her interest in healthcare.
In Chicago Heights, Illinois, Rhimes attended Marian Catholic High School. She double majored in film studies and English at Dartmouth College, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1991.
She joined the Black Underground Theatre Association while attending Dartmouth. She split her time between creating and participating in student plays and fiction writing respectively.
Debra Martin Chase employed Rhimes as an intern while she was a student at USC. Rhimes attributes a portion of her early success to mentors like renowned African-American producer Chase.
She also had a job with Mundy Lane Entertainment, owned by Denzel Washington. Rhimes had Chase as a mentor; the two of them collaborated on The Princess Diaries 2.
Rhimes struggled to find a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood after graduating. Rhimes did a number of day jobs to make ends meet, first as an office administrator and then as a counselor at a job center that provided job training to those with mental illness and housing instability.
Rhimes served as research director for the 1995 Peabody Award-winning film Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream during this time.
Her sole work as a film director is the 1998 short Blossoms and Veils, which starred Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jeffrey Wright. She sold a feature script to New Line Cinema. Rhimes was given the task of contributing to the 1999 HBO film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Halle Berry, the film’s star, won multiple honors.
Britney Spears’ first movie, Crossroads, was written by Rhimes in 2001. Despite receiving negative reviews, the movie made more than $60 million worldwide.
With ABC, Rhimes wrote her first television pilot for ABC in 2003 about teenage female war reporters, but the network rejected it. Grey’s Anatomy was created by Rhimes, who is also the show’s executive producer and chief writer now. On March 27, 2005, the midseason replacement series made its debut.
The Grey’s Anatomy spin-off series Private Practise, which premiered on ABC on September 26, 2007, was created, and produced by Rhimes in 2007. Inside the Box, a female-centric ensemble drama set in a Washington, D.C. network news office, was a new pilot that Rhimes created for ABC in 2010.
In 2011, Rhimes worked as executive producer on Jenna Bans’ Grey’s Anatomy-inspired medical drama Off the Map. ABC ordered the pilot episode of Rhimes’ Scandal into a series in May 2011. Gilded Lilys, a period drama pilot created by Rhimes in 2012, was not picked up for a full season.
How to Get Away with Murder, a new Rhimes series received an ABC pilot order in December 2013. The Catch, a comedy-drama directed by Rhimes and based on a story by British author Kate Atkinson, debuted on ABC in March 2016.
She canceled her contract with ABC early in 2017, exchanging her $10 million base income for a four-year contract with Netflix that, according to The New York Times, was worth an estimated $150 million. According to the agreement, all of Rhimes’ upcoming productions will be Netflix Original programs, as reported by Celebrity Net Worth.
In addition to all of this, the streamer had already acquired the rights to stream every previous episode of Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy in the United States.
Bridgerton, a television series based on a novel series by Julia Quinn, was Rhimes’s first project under this deal. Next followed Inventing Anna, a movie that was based on the New York Magazine article “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People.” Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black), Katie Lowes (Scandal), Anna Chlumsky (Veep), and Julia Garner (Ozark) were among the stars of the ten-part series.
How Rich Shonda Is?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Shonda Rhimes has a $160 million net worth. The television series “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “Private Practise,” among others, were created, executive produced and written by Shonda Rhimes, who also served as their chief writer.
In the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles, Shonda paid $4.6 million in 2017 for a Tudor-style house. Rhimes has lived in the neighborhood three times before. The house is a little under 5,000 square feet in size and contains four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.
Shonda purchased an 8,398-square-foot Mediterranean property in Hancock Park for $8.8 million in 2014. Patricia Heaton, an actress, was the seller. Shonda broke a record for the most expensive home ever sold in the neighborhood when she sold it for $21 million in January 2022.
Is Shonda Married Or Not?
In June 2002, Rhimes adopted her first daughter; in February 2012, she adopted a second girl. Rhimes gave birth to her third daughter through a surrogate in September 2013.
Conclusion
To conclude, Shonda worked for ABC and Netflix, she directed numerous series along with writing. She is one of the renowned American personalities whose net worth is in the millions.
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