Portia de Rossi had been a Hollywood fixture for decades, starring in various films and TV shows since the '90s.
The Australian native is best known for her tv show roles, first playing Nelle Porter in the ll hit series Ally McBeal then later joining the cast of Arrested Development as Lindsay Bluth Fünke.
As far as her Hollywood career goes, everything seemed to be going well for the actress. And when it came to her personal life, things began heating up for de Rossi.
In 2008, de Rossi married tv host Ellen DeGeneres; the couple first met at a party in 2000. As she embraced married life, the actress remained busy with various TV and film projects.
However, in 2018, de Rossi announced that she was going to retire from acting for good. Since then, fans have wondered what had happened to the former actress’ reported $50 million net worth.
Portia De Rossi Had A Lot Of Notable Roles Before Retiring
As an actress, de Rossi has dabbled in multiple genres, portraying sorority sister Murphy in the horror sequel Scream 2, a prying reporter in All the Way, and later on, mother to a movie star in the comedy Now Add Honey.
In the TV world, de Rossi also aimed to keep things interesting.
For instance, after years of playing adopted daughter Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Arrested Development, de Rossi took the time to briefly appear in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet as the eccentric and socially challenged Dr. Cara Wolf.
Of the casting, Santa Clarita creator Victor Fresco revealed that he really had de Rossi in mind for the part since they came up with the character.
“We knew that we were going to have a character like that come in at the end, and so we aimed it toward Portia, and early in the process, she said she'd be happy to do that,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
At the same time, de Rossi memorably joined the cast of Scandal as cunning political adviser Elizabeth North during the political drama’s fourth season. The actress initially came on as a guest star but was later promoted to a series regular.
Unfortunately for fans, however, de Rossi only stayed on the show until its fifth season, after she decided to stop acting.
“If I could keep her forever, I would — but kidnapping is illegal,” show creator Shonda Rhimes said in a statement to Deadline. “Besides, I am incredibly impressed with the vision she has for her creative future. I wish her all the best.”
Later on, it became clear that de Rossi’s creative future absolutely had nothing to do with doing work in front of the cameras again.
So Why Did Portia De Rossi Stop Acting?
Fans may have loved seeing de Rossi do onscreen work but as it turns out, she had other plans for her future. This much was made clear when the actress came on her wife’s show to explain her decision a bit more.
“I was approaching 45 and I just kind of … was wondering is there something that I could tackle now that I’ve never done before that would be really challenging and different,” de Rossi said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
“I kind of knew what acting would look like for me for the next 10, 20 years, so I decided to quit and start a business.”
That business was revealed to be General Public, an art company that has a partnership with Synographs™, a textured printing process that was developed in partnership with Fujifilm.
General Public is inspired by the idea that good art needs to become more accessible to everyone (hence the name).
“As a lifelong art lover and collector, I recognized the gap in terms of quality and price between works shown through a gallery and works that are readily available,” de Rossi told Architectural Digest.
Portia explained she was interested in making art come to life. “Until now, technology has not enabled painters to re-create paintings with all the dimension and texture of the original,” she explained. “I set about to work with technology companies to develop new technology to make a textured print.”
Here’s What Happened To Portia De Rossi’s Net Worth Now
In 2021, estimates report that de Rossi’s net worth is now as much as $60 million. It seems that her decision to quit acting and grow a company has paid off immensely.
At the moment, it is unclear how much the former actress’ new business venture has contributed to her wealth. Nonetheless, it’s safe to say that business has been quite good.
Meanwhile, on the Hollywood side of things, it is likely that de Rossi will receive residual earnings should shows she’s starred in become syndicated in the future.
So as it seems the former actress’ wealth will just keep growing even if she never takes another role again. For de Rossi, life is good.
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