Ian Somerhalder has revealed he was forced to dig himself and his family out of what he described as an eight-figure debt after stepping away from acting.
In a new interview with E! News, the actor said he went through significant “financial upheaval” following his decision to retire from the industry, adding that the situation left him owing at least $10 million.
“I retired from acting seven years ago,” Somerhalder shared while attending Manhattan Beach’s Beverage Forum. “I left an insanely lucrative career in television after financial upheaval from building a business that I didn’t build properly.”
He went on to say the debt ballooned to such an extent as a result of “fraud”, though he did not provide further details.
“Due to fraud, it put my wife and I into an eight-figure hole. Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of. But Nikki [Reed] and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
He added: “I should’ve been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world [instead of] starting companies that were not gonna pay me possibly ever.”
Somerhalder co-founded Brother’s Bond Bourbon with The Vampire Diaries co-star Paul Wesley and launched The Absorption Company, a sustainable powdered supplement brand, in 2024.
He first rose to prominence as Boone Carlyle in Lost, where he appeared across four seasons, including two as a series regular and two as a guest. He later sunk his teeth into our hearts with his iconic portrayal of hunky vampire Damon Salvatore in all eight seasons of The Vampire Diaries.
Ian Somerhalder has been married to fellow fictional vampire Nikki Reed (who famously played a Cullen in Twilight) since 2015.
The actor previously shared on Instagram that Reed played a key role in helping him navigate what he described as a “true nightmare” period in his life, which came as he was building a business while still starring in The Vampire Diaries.
Somerhalder suggested the juggling act of entrepreneurship and a demanding acting schedule contributed to one of the more turbulent chapters of his post-breakout career.
“This woman here decided that she didn’t want to see her husband ruin his body/mind/spirit and pulled up her bootstraps and got down in the trenches assembling a team to get to the negotiating table to find a way out,” he wrote on Instagram at the time. “She devoted her life to getting me out of that mess and it almost killed her along the way. I am where I am BECAUSE of this woman.”
Somerhalder left the acting business after his Netflix series V Wars was cancelled in 2020.
He later shared with PEOPLE that a return to acting would be unlikely as his Hollywood career is “in the rearview mirror”.
“I remember sitting with my management talking about this, saying, ‘Hey, this is the only thing I’ve ever known that’s ever sustained my family, and I’m walking away from it’, at this sort of peak,” Somerhalder told PEOPLE in 2024, reflecting on his decision to quit acting.
“I say this in all humility, in all respect, but I would much rather do this than go spend two months in some city, shooting a TV show away from my family or transporting my family back and forth. Once you reach a certain level, you’re like, ‘Okay, I want to focus on family and the future of farming and food and energy and the big things’. I don’t need to chase awards and anything that would make me feel better about myself.”
So… no Vampire Diaries reunion then? Way to rip our hearts right out with those fangs of yours, Ian.
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