Mae Whitman's Net Worth: The Good Girls Star Makes More Than You Think
Actress Mae Whitman is barely in her thirties, but she's been a screen fixture essentially since she could walk, debuting in When a Man Loves a Woman, back in 1994, at the age of just six (via IMDb). Most of us remember her as the little girl Ross creates an at-home space camp for in Friends, but a young Whitman was gifted recurring roles in the likes of Chicago Hope and JAG too, as well as bit parts in everything from CSI to Cold Case.
Good Girls re-established Whitman as a TV star, but she's lit up movies including Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and The DUFF over the years, too. With over 150 acting credits to her name, at the time of writing, the Los Angeles native certainly isn't hurting for work but Whitman also isn't the kind of celebrity to draw attention to herself offscreen. To that end, the Arrested Development star is sitting on a comfortable nest egg that belies her lengthy career.
Whitman learned young that working isn't everything
Plenty of child stars, sadly, find it difficult transitioning into more grown-up roles, frequently going off the rails and becoming sad tabloid headlines rather than fully-formed humans. Whitman credits her parents with keeping the young actress on the straight and narrow, telling People, "I really owe it to [them] for being extremely mindful and present, and they always treated me with respect and consideration."
She added, "They took so much care to make sure the environment we were in was very kind and sensitive. I was really lucky." Likewise, Whitman's folks made sure work didn't consume her life. She reminisced, "If I wanted to go on a field trip instead of doing a movie, [they] were supportive. They would be like, 'Don't do it! Do your field trip, whatever you want.'" It's a lesson she holds dear to her heart to this day, reasoning a paycheck isn't everything.
Splashing out doesn't suit the Good Girls star
Even when it came to Good Girls, which is arguably her biggest role to date, Whitman wasn't interested in splashing the cash to prove she'd made it. "I've been working for 28 years," she reasoned with CNBC, "And I was still like, 'It's not enough'." However, she did treat herself to a huge, king-size bed, as a reward for her hard work thus far. "It's not even a fancy one," Whitman quipped.
She admitted, "I cried about it for three hours because I was like, 'This is so much money to spend in one place'." The DUFF star rarely spends "big chunks of money," refusing to splash out unless it's on something that improves her "quality of life or convenience." She takes each thing as it comes and tries not to let debts pile up. As a result, her net worth is estimated by Celebrity Net Worth to be around the $1 million mark.