The CW
Ian Somerhalder led the long-running, binge-worthy show The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017, but the star had to deal with an “eight-figure” debt after he left the show.
The star played Damon Salvatore, a vampire who struggles to cope with his love for a young woman called Elena (Nina Dobrev), and also clashes with his brother Stefan (Paul Wesley).
Given that The Vampire Diaries was hugely popular and incredibly binge-worthy, it led to various spinoff shows, including Legacies and The Originals. So with that in mind you’d be forgiven for thinking that Somerhalder would be set for life after starring in the show. Especially since he also appeared in other projects like Smallville, Lost, and V Wars.
But after he left The Vampire Diaries, Somerhalder was saddled with a huge debt after he and his wife invested in a business that wasn’t sustainable, and was victim to fraud.
Ian Somerhalder was left in “an eight-figure hole” after he left The Vampire Diaries and retired from acting
Ian Somerhalder shared during an exclusive E! News interview at the Beverage Forum April 28 how he and wife Nikki Reed made their way out of a massive debt after investing in a bad business deal: “we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.” https://t.co/zOOmDL7key pic.twitter.com/8SiYhAFgNy
— E! News (@enews) April 29, 2026
When speaking to E! News about his career at The Beverage Forum on April 28, Ian Somerhalder opened up about his financial struggles after his time on The Vampire Diaries. “I retired from acting seven years ago. 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,” he recalled.
At the time, Somerhalder was involved in a clean energy business, and he told fans in 2021 that while he was working on The Vampire Diaries he had made guarantees to banks in order to try make the company successful, but ultimately the business failed due to fraudulent activity by one of their customers.
He praised his wife, Nikki Reid, for pulling the pair of them out of debt. He added: “Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of, but Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal, but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
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Somerhalder noted that he made a mistake, and he “should have been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world” but instead he was “starting companies that were not gonna pay me possibly ever.”
