Ian Somerhalder Says 8-Figure Hole Forced Sale of Everything
Ian Somerhalder said fraud left him and Nikki Reed in an eight-figure hole, a hit he described as the result of building a business he “didn’t build properly.” He said the couple had to sell houses, paintings, cars, watches and “everything” to climb out.
Eight Figures, One Deal
“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 said in a recent interview with E! News. “Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of,” he added. “but Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
The scale of the loss is the story here. An eight-figure hole is not a bad quarter or a bruising side venture; it is the kind of debt that forces a wholesale sale of assets, and Somerhalder named the assets with unusual specificity. Reed’s role was just as direct: he said she negotiated them out of the deal.
The Vampire Diaries Years
Somerhalder said he should have been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world. He starred as Damon Salvatore on The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017, and said he invested in the badly managed business while he was on the show. That puts the loss in sharper relief: the money came while his television career was still at full speed.
“I retired from acting seven years ago,” Somerhalder said, tying the business setback to the end of his on-screen work. He added, “And so, then leaving a lucrative business in television to go start companies that were not going to pay me possibly ever.”
Brothers Bond Lessons
Somerhalder now says he is learning to become a pilot, and he framed the discipline in numbers too: “I live on planes, right. Did 120 flights last year, I’ll do 150 this year.” He also said Brothers Bond bourbon “just happens to be owned by two men in the entertainment industry,” a reminder that his business life never really left the industry orbit.
His advice to couples starting companies together was blunt: “Remember, it’s supposed to be fun,” and “The ups and the downs in the journey are supposed to be fun, the grind is supposed to be fun. Find the beauty in all of it.” For readers tracking Somerhalder’s pivot, the practical takeaway is simple: he is no longer selling a celebrity success story, but a cautionary one about leverage, fraud and how quickly a side business can swallow the value of a TV career.
