Vanessa Lachey Has Done Well For Herself Prior To 'DWTS'

There’s nothing like a little healthy competition to spice up a marriage, right? At least that’s how I like to think Nick and Vanessa Lachey will look at it while they compete on Dancing With the Stars Season 25. While Nick dances with pro Peta Murgatroyd this season, Vanessa will be pairing up with Murgatroyd’s husband Maks Chmerkovskiy, so it’s definitely an interesting dynamic. But since it’s a paying gig, what is Vanessa Lachey’s net worth before Dancing With the Stars? The actress and TV host has had a successful career and done well for herself.

Thanks to her career of modeling, acting, and working as a TV host, Vanessa’s net worth is $10 million on her own, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com. Although it’s unclear how much each contestant is paid to compete on DWTS, on a sliding scale (depending on how long they last before they’re eliminated each week), the base rate is somewhere around $125,000 for the season. Add this to Vanessa’s already substantial net worth of $10 million, and it’s not a bad payout for a couple of months of work. And while Vanessa doesn’t have a history of professional dancing like, say, her husband, she does have experience on a live stage as Miss Teen USA in 1998, so she stands to go pretty far this season on DWTS, which means a potentially higher paycheck at the end of it all.

Over the past 15 years, Vanessa has been a host on TRL and correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and even hosted Miss Teen USA in 2004 and co-hosted the Miss Universe pageant in 2007. On top of that, Vanessa co-starred in the comedy spoof Disaster Movie in 2007 and has since had recurring roles in the short-lived TV shows Dads and Truth Be Told. As both a TV host and actress, Vanessa has been steadily working and has never quite gone out of the limelight. In fact, soon she’ll be the host of the newest cooking competition show that (hopefully) doesn’t make its contestants cry, Top Chef Junior on Universal Kids network.

Along with chef Curtis Stone, the former host of Top Chef Masters and former host and judge for Top Chef Duels, Vanessa will host the new Top Chef spin-off competition show with the first batch of 12 chefs, ages 9-14. It premieres in October 2017, and if Vanessa is still in the running for the DWTS Mirrorball trophy at that time, you’ll be able to see her on TV twice over.

The working mom of three obviously keeps super busy year-round, even when she’s not working, but if her Instagram is any indication of the way the Lachey household is run, Vanessa is more than capable of succeeding on Season 25 of DWTS. Especially if she has adorable little fans like this...

Along with husband Nick’s net worth of $20 million and whatever the couple earn from competing on DWTS this season, they’re going to remain sitting pretty as a very successful Hollywood couple, though it still stands that Vanessa has done well for herself regardless. But since they’re both career-driven, it’s going to make for an exciting season.

It also might be a little difficult to remain impartial as a wife, while still competing against Nick on DWTS to the best of her ability. "Maks is my TV husband and Nick is my life husband. I have to learn how to separate. It’s really hard," Vanessa told People. But being partnered with Chmerkovskiy, who welcomed his first child with Murgatroyd in January 2017, certainly helps.

"We are respectful of each other’s careers and family lives and relationships," Vanessa said of her relationship with Chmerkovskiy. "It was the first day that we just kind of put dancing aside and said, 'Hey, this is me. I’m a mommy of three kids.' And he’s like, 'I’m a daddy. We just got married.' I see their dynamic, he sees my dynamic. So it’s nice to have this dynamic going into it."

Vanessa’s career has been built on acting, but also keeping composed in a live setting, so chances are, she’s going to find it pretty easy to embrace the atmosphere on the ballroom floor.

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