‘Vampire Diaries’ Star Ian Somerhalder Got Into ‘Eight-Figure’ Debt After Retiring From Acting and Had to Sell Off ‘Houses, Paintings, Cars, Watches, Everything’

Ian Somerhalder revealed in a new interview with E! News that he was forced to claw himself and his family out of debt in the eight-figure range (an exact number was not given but it was $10 million or more) after he retired from acting. Somerhalder said “financial upheaval” is part of the reason he had to leave his lucrative television career behind. He gained prominence as Boone Carlyle on four seasons of ABC’s “Lost” (two as a series regular and two as a special guest) and then became a sensation for playing the vampire Damon Salvatore on all eight seasons of The CW’s “The Vampire Diaries.”

via: People

The Vampire Diaries star, 47, retired from acting in 2019, leaving behind an “insanely lucrative career in television,” while also navigating “financial upheaval from building a business that I didn’t build properly.”

Somerhalder said that “fraud” left him “in an eight-figure hole,” which he described as “a hard hole to climb out of.”

“I retired from acting seven years ago,” Somerhalder recently told E! News’ 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. And 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.”

To get out of debt, Somerhalder said he "sold houses, paintings, cars, watches — everything."

“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,” the actor added, referring to his eight-year run on The Vampire Diaries.

Somerhalder has been married to “Twilight” actor Nikki Reed since 2015. He previously posted on Instagram that Reed helped get him out of a “true nightmare” as he was building a company while still starring on “The Vampire Diaries.”

“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 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 retired from acting after V Wars was canceled, and he told PEOPLE in October 2024 that he doesn't see himself returning to acting. "I think it's in the rearview mirror. I do," he said.

Though he "got the rights back for V Wars," Somerhalder said, "I just don't know how the hell we would ever make a TV show. We're building three companies at the same time, raising kids."

The Lost star has previously reflected on the big risk he took in 2019 when he walked away from acting and producing.

“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 remembered about his decision to stop 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.”

Nikki Reed has shared that she and her husband have "amazing platforms" thanks to their time in the "entertainment world," and while they've shifted their focus toward other ventures lately, "I don't view it like a walk away," she said.

"I sort of view a nice transitional moment right now of figuring out how to really marry business with passion, with, you know, truly walking the walk," Reed said on SiriusXM’s The Julia Cunningham Show last year. "I think you can talk about this stuff all you want, but if you don't have your feet on the ground and you aren't doing it in practice, then it's hard to really be an expert in something you don't know, and so that's a real priority for me."

Reed and Somerhalder primarily run The Absorption Company, a sustainable powdered supplement brand they launched in 2024 focused on nutrient absorption. He is also involved in the regenerative bourbon brand, Brother’s Bond Bourbon, with his former The Vampire Diaries costar Paul Wesley.

Meanwhile, Reed also oversees her sustainable jewelry line, Bayou With Love, and serves as creative director for LOCI, an eco-friendly sneaker company. She is also an investor and advisor for Genexa, which focuses on cleaner over-the-counter medicines.

Somerhalder and Reed also share two children: a daughter, 8, and a son, who turns 3 in June.