There’s no two ways about it, living life as a gold miner must be hard work. And while the people who star in Discovery’s Gold Rush are technically reality TV stars, they really are slogging their guts out each season to make back the money they’ve spent on machinery, staff and more.
While the salaries of most reality TV stars are kept under wraps, largely because viewers can likely see how well they’re living from the show – take the Real Housewives for example – it may be worth taking a look at just how much money the cast make on Gold Rush because it’s probably much less than we think.
What is Gold Rush all about?
Gold Rush is a Discovery Channel show set in the Klondike region of Canada.
The show has been airing since 2010 and many of the cast members have appeared on Gold Rush since it first started.
Gold Rush also has some spin-off shows, due to the success of its original series, such as Gold Rush: White Water which features Fred Hurt and his team.
Have people left the show due to the wages?
While some Gold Rush cast members have followed in the footsteps of their families such as Parker Schnabel and Monica Beets, others have joined the gold mining trade later in the game such as Fred Lewis.
Given that some of the cast members come from mining families, their financial situation may have differed from people who have joined the show without previous experience, however, this is just a guess.
Even people who have mining families, such as Fred Hurt, have publicly spoken about how he had to leave the Discovery show due to financial reasons.
Looper reported in 2021 that Fred left Gold Rush back in season 5 because he didn’t have enough money to carry on. In a Facebook post at the time, Fred wrote: “If you want a Miner, call me…….if you want an Actor, pay me like one.”
He also wrote that he was a working-class man that isn’t rich. However, some viewers fired back at Fred and questioned how much he was earning per episode. Red Lasso reported that cast members could earn between $10,000 and $25,000 per episode. However, it is worth considering how much the teams have to spend out on equipment and workers to even get the ball rolling on Gold Rush each season. Some years, teams have had to give up before the season has really got going such as Fred Lewis.
The miner was spending $5,000 a week in the hope of breaking even and after the crew only mined $8000 worth of gold for the entire season, none of them got paid and everyone went home.
Who earns the most on Gold Rush?
Tony Beets and Parker Schnabel are regarded the richest gold miners on Gold Rush as per Looper.
Both come from, or are part of, mining families. Tony Beets’ net worth is estimated at $15m while Parker’s is estimated at $10m.
Fred Hurt’s net worth is estimated at $6m, Rick Ness’ is estimated at $5m and Fred Lewis’ is estimated by Stars Offline at $1.6m.
Some of the cast members have become celebrities in their own right. Parker has been appearing on TV for the past 10 years, so it makes sense for the miner to have a big social media following. He has over 440k followers on Instagram.
Parker’s net worth may seem like a lot but he is a third-generation gold miner. Tony, on the other hand, was raised on a farm in Holland and has built his gold mining empire over the past 25 years.
