Ian Somerhalder has revealed he once faced an eight-figure debt, sharing how wife Nikki Reed helped him recover—even if it meant selling off cars.
“I retired from acting seven years ago,” the Vampire Diaries alum, 47, told E! News at the Beverage Forum in Manhattan Beach, California, on Tuesday, April 28.
He added, “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.”
Somerhalder acknowledged the debt was “a hard hole to climb out of,” emphasizing that Reed’s support made a significant difference.
“But Nikki and I did it,” he added.
The Lost star went on to say, “You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal but we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything.”
Before dating the Twilight actress, Somerhalder launched a clean energy company while starring in The Vampire Diaries, investing heavily and making major personal financial commitments.
Somerhalder said that things went awry “due to greed and fraud within that company and fraudulent activities from our biggest customer.”
He noted the slump in oil and gas pushed him over the edge, saying “it all came crashing down” when he couldn’t fulfill promises to banks.
Somerhalder said he “should have 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.
To note, The couple recently celebrated their 11-year wedding anniversary as they they tied the knot on April 26, 2015.
Ian Somerhalder and his wife Nikki Reed also share an 8-year-old daughter Bodhi and a 2-year-old son.
