Tyra Banks, an American professional model, television personality, producer, actor, and businesswoman, rose to prominence as a model at the age of 15 and has since become known for many things. She was the first African-American woman to appear on the covers of GQ and Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.
She has been a Dancing with the Stars (DWS) host since 2020, but the supermodel is leaving to pursue her passion as an entrepreneur. She dropped a hint to TMZ while exiting Whole Foods in Santa Monica.
While hosting DWS, banks also ran several side businesses. One such business is the freshly launched SMiZE and Dream ice cream; she told TMZ that business is her heart and soul. According to TMZ, the actress demonstrated this in her shopping cart, showing the platform the materials she had just purchased to do some taste testing for future ice cream varieties, emphasizing the emphasis she places on research and development.
While her primary emphasis is now on growing her business, Banks is not ruling out a return to television. Her future position in television, she says, will be more on the producing side than the presenting side.
She initially ventured into entrepreneurship when she founded Ty Ty Baby Productions, now Bankable Productions, which is responsible for both the reality series America’s Next Top Model, which premiered in 2003, and her daytime talk show, The Tyra Banks Show (2005–2010). Banks is also an executive producer of Dancing With the Stars and a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model (known as “BanX” today).
Her career as an actress and model, as well as her multiple reality series, indicate that she has amassed a sizable fortune. How Africa previously claimed that her net worth in 2021 is anticipated to be $90 million.
Despite her income, the executive producer lives a frugal lifestyle; so frugal, in fact, that her accountants even advised her to spend some money since she was paying too much taxes.
“I was always more interested in experiences over things,” she said in an interview with MONEY. “Things didn’t make me happy. I saved, saved, saved. But I saved to a fault. About 15 years ago, my accountants pulled me aside, and they were like ‘Tyra. You’re not spending money. Nothing. You’re just giving it away to the government. You need to spend some damn money!’”
Banks then created an “F Account,” which stood for “Frivolous Account.” She spent it on what she called “stupid stuff.”
“In hindsight, I should have bought art and things that I appreciated,” she said. “I was getting private planes, nothing to show for it. It was a private plane kind of moment for me.”
Banks’ thrifty lifestyle stems from her upbringing. Tyra and her brother moved into a one-bedroom apartment with their mother, who slept on the living room floor while Tyra and her brother slept in the bedroom, after her parents separated. They moved to a two-bedroom apartment a year later, then to a three-bedroom apartment until Tyra was 20 years old and bought her first house. Her mother had taught her everything she needed to know about money at the time.