George Foreman Net Worth: $300M at Death, Mostly From the Grill

George Foreman had a net worth of about $300 million when he died on March 21, 2025, at age 76, according to Celebrity Net Worth (checked September 2026). The biggest reason was not boxing but a countertop grill: royalties and a 1999 buyout of his name rights brought him somewhere between $200 million and $250 million, depending on which estimate you use. His first boxing career, by contrast, left him close to broke.

Where the money came from

The George Foreman Grill

Salton, Inc. was looking for a spokesman for its fat-reducing grill in the 1990s, soon after Foreman's comeback had made his diet part of his public image. Foreman has said he did not want to use the product at first and that his wife pushed him to try it, as he told interviewer Graham Bensinger in 2013, reported by Yahoo Finance. The deal carried no upfront fee. Instead, Foreman took a share of every sale, which a 2004 Businessweek report put at 40%, according to the same article.

That structure is why the grill paid so well. The payments started small and then grew fast as the product took off. Reported figures:

• Peak monthly royalties: about $4.5 million a month per Wikipedia; about $5 million per Foreman's own 2013 estimate (Yahoo Finance); and "$8 million per month" per his 2014 AARP interview as cited by Celebrity Net Worth.
• 1999 buyout: Salton bought the right to use his name for a reported $137.5 million to $138 million, split as $127.5 million in cash and $10 million in stock (Yahoo Finance, Wikipedia, Celebrity Net Worth).
• Total from the grill: more than $200 million through 2011 (Wikipedia), about $240 million (Yahoo Finance), more than $250 million (Celebrity Net Worth).
• Units sold: over 100 million worldwide.

Boxing purses

Between 1969 and 1977 Foreman put aside about $5 million from boxing, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Bad investments and heavy spending wiped most of it out by 1987. His comeback purses from 1987 to 1997 have not been published in a single reliable total. One data point: a planned 1999 fight with Larry Holmes at the Houston Astrodome would have paid Foreman $10 million, but it was canceled, per Wikipedia.

Broadcasting, TV and film

He was a ringside analyst for HBO's boxing coverage for 12 years until 2004. He starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom George in 1993, competed on The Masked Singer in 2022, and was an executive producer of the 2023 film Big George Foreman. Pay for this work was not reported. He also did commercial work for other brands, including Meineke, which Celebrity Net Worth mentions without figures.

Career: how he got here

George Edward Foreman was born on January 10, 1949, in Marshall, Texas, and grew up in Houston's Fifth Ward with six siblings. He left school at 15 and, by his own account, got into trouble before joining the Job Corps at 16, where he earned a GED and trained as a carpenter and bricklayer. He took up boxing after moving to Pleasanton, California.

The comeback is the hinge of the money story. Foreman wrote in his autobiography that the youth center had eaten much of what he earned in his first career, and a return to the ring was the way to fund it. The comeback also rebuilt his image from the sullen champion of the 1970s into a cheerful, older figure who talked about eating well. That image is what Salton was buying. At 45 years old, winning the title from Moorer made him the oldest heavyweight champion in history, per Wikipedia, and gave the grill a spokesman whom viewers already liked.

Recent changes (2025–2026)

• March 21, 2025: Foreman died in a Houston hospital. A memorial service followed on April 14 at the Wortham Theater Center, per Wikipedia.
• April 2026: his family revealed that he had been privately buried at Logan Park Cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa, in April 2025. He had been drawn to the Loess Hills during a 1988 visit, Radio Iowa reported.
• 2025–2026: no public details of his estate plan or will have been reported. The $300 million figure remains an estimate of his wealth at death, not a probate value.

Assets

Few individual assets have been documented. The best-reported one is his car collection. In late 2023 he sold more than 50 cars through Hagerty Marketplace with no reserve, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Highlights included:

• 2005 Ford GT, under 790 miles: $330,000
• 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible: $153,000
• 1987 Ferrari Testarossa, owned since 1992: $143,000
• 1963 Chevrolet Corvette split-window coupe: about $125,000
• 1999 Prevost touring coach: about $115,000

He lived in the Houston area and led his church there. Values of his homes and any investment portfolio have not been reported by a reliable outlet, so they are not listed here.

Net worth compared

Foreman's grill money puts him far ahead of the men he fought, based on Celebrity Net Worth's estimates:

The gap shows how rare Foreman's path was. Most fighters of his era earned their money in the ring and saw it shrink afterward. Foreman lost his first fortune, then earned a far larger one outside the sport. For today's heavyweights, see our profile of Trey Lippe Morrison, and for the trainer's side of the business, Calvin Ford. For another case of a famous name turned into a product business, compare Kris Jenner.

Why estimates differ and how this figure was reached

Foreman never confirmed exactly how much the grill paid him, as Wikipedia notes. Every total is built from the few numbers that are public:

• The buyout is well documented: about $138 million, most in cash.
• Royalties are not: estimates of his peak monthly check run from $4.5 million to $8 million, and the sources count different periods. That spread alone moves the total by tens of millions.
• Losses are unclear: his first-career savings of about $5 million were mostly gone by 1987, and the cost of his youth center, church work and a family of 12 children is not public.
• Taxes and investment returns on money received in the 1990s are unknown.

Celebrity Net Worth's $300 million, repeated by Yahoo in March 2025, is the most widely cited figure. It is plausible given a grill total of $200 million to $250 million plus 25 years of returns, but it is an estimate. His heirs have not disclosed the size of the estate.