Todd Ray was born in Lancaster, South Carolina USA, and is a former Grammy Award-winning producer, and the owner of the Venice Beach Freakshow.
So just how rich is Todd Ray? According to sources, Ray has earned a net worth of over $10 million, as of early 2017, established through his involvement in music industry and his Freakshow.
Todd Ray Net Worth $10 Million
Raised by a single mother, Ray grew up in rural South Carolina. His interest and love for music began at an early age. In the early ’80s, he bought a pair of turntables and began to perform with his friends. Although his group didn’t have a name, everybody started to call them ‘The White Boys’. They soon had their first demo, and Ray entered a talent contest which then enabled him to sign a record contract with Polygram in 1986. Along with his group, he moved to Queens, New York, to start his professional music career. They finished an album for Tin Pan Apple Records, selling a decent amount of copies. However, his group soon disbanded, and Ray moved back to South Carolina, where he joined his family in building wood furniture in order to earn some money and go back to New York. There he started an internship at Big Beat Records, which gave a jump start to his producing career.
The ’90s saw the blossoming of his career. In the early part of the decade Ray produced an album for Double XX Posse, and his first video with the song “Not Gonna Be Able To Do It”, paving his way to recognition and fame under the moniker T-Ray. His net worth began to rise.
He went on to work with artists such as Grand Puba and MC Serch. In 1993 he produced Cypress Hill’s song “Ain’t Going Out Like That” on their album “Black Sunday”, which earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Single, enabling Ray to make a name for himself in the world of music and boost his net worth.
He then produced for Kool G Rap, cementing his reputation as a producer. By the mid-’90s, he had moved to Los Angeles and expanded his range to rock & roll, producing for artists and bands such as Helmet, Mick Jagger, Korn, White Zombie and 311, to name a few, all adding to his wealth.
In 1999 Ray produced the album “Supernatural” for Santana, winning another Grammy Award. Around this time, he launched his own label, which was a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. He went on to capture two more Grammys for his work on the music of a Latin band called Ozomatli.
As a producer, Ray has an impressive body of work, which has enabled him to reach a high level of success and recognition and to earn a sizable fortune. However, he eventually grew tired of the music business and decided to pursue something else, something that had also been his passion from the early days – sideshows.
In 2006 he opened The Venice Beach Freakshow, a collection of circus sideshow acts performing at a small beach theater. Upon seeing that people were interested in this kind of entertainment, he focused on finding strange and rare acts to add to the show’s performance. Eventually, he had performers like Jessa the bearded lady, who holds the Guinness World Record for the longest beard on a woman, and Larry the Wolf Boy, who is the ‘Hairiest Man Alive’. Ray’s daughter, Asia Ray, swallows fire and tolerates currents of electricity being shot through her body. The show also includes numerous animals with strange anomalies, such as two-headed snakes and turtles, a five-legged frog and two-nosed dog. Since its launch, the show has become extremely popular, bringing in thousands of visitors a year and enabling Ray to collect a great income. In 2013, AMC turned the show into a reality series, boosting its popularity.
In his private life, Ray is married to Danielle Ray, with whom he has two children.
