How Much Mike Rowe Is Really Worth Now

The average American finds success through a steady job. They commit years of their life to climbing the corporate ladder, and in return are rewarded with bigger salaries and better benefits. But not all Americans are average, and often, the ones who end up doing the best are outside-the-box type thinkers.

Such is the case with Mike Rowe, the famed host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, which became a huge hit for its depictions of real world, blue collar jobs. The secret? He never met a job he didn't like — or at least one that he wasn't willing to try. 

Based on the resume posted on his personal website, he's probably got the most colorful work history of anyone in the world. Past jobs range from maggot farmer and hippo wrangler to golf ball diver and baseball mud gatherer. Heck, even before he began dirty jobs he was living an off the wall existence that would have made Vans proud — at one point he was an opera singer, according to his alma mater's Towerlight newspaper.

Sticking to any one of these probably wouldn't have netted him beaucoup cash, but packaged up within the Dirty Jobs universe, they formed the foundation of a lucrative career.

How much are we talking?

Workandmoney.com values Rowe at about $35 million, which isn't too shabby for one of the top champions of the working man. To his credit, he doesn't flaunt his wealth, residing in the same modest apartment for the last 14 years, and spends more of his time working on charitable causes like the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, helping to change perceptions of blue collar work in America. 

According to his personal website bio, this leaves him about five days a month to hang out in his apartment, which he uses to "read pulp fiction and write about himself in the third person."

Compared to most wealthy people, there's not much bad to say about Mike Rowe. Any man willing to cover himself in sewage to make a living deserves what he is paid.