Net worth and salary Willie Geist: Willie Geist is an American television personality who has a net worth of $14 million. NBC’s salary is $5 million a year.
Early Life: Born on May 3, 1975 in Evanston, Illinois, Willie Geist, also known as William Russell Geist, grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His father Bill Geist is a retired television journalist and author and his mother Jody Geist is a social worker. Willie is the older brother of Libby Geist Wildes, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker whose credits include “OJ: Made In America” and “The Last Dance.” Willie is the great-grandson of former Detroit Red Wings star and Hockey player Herbie Lewis.
Geist attended George Washington Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He captained the high school basketball and football teams and helped his school win the state football title in 1991. He was in both the New Jersey Boys State and National Honor Society. Willie graduated from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. While in college, he edited his college newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler.
Career: He began his professional career in the late 1990s working as a producer/editor for CNN Sports Illustrated, a 24-hour sports channel that eventually went out of business in 2002. He later became a field producer and reporter. for CNN Sports, where he covered the Super Bowl, the NCAA Final Four and the Masters.
Geist went on to work on Fox Sports Net’s “I, Max” with Max Kellerman before joining “The Situation with Tucker Carlson” as a senior producer in 2005. He stepped in as a substitute co-host on the show . of MSNBC’s morning show from 6:00 to 9:00 in 2007. During this time, Don Imus was fired in late April 2007 and Geist was named permanent co-host of “Morning Joe” alongside Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski in September 2007. In late 2009 he was then given his own show, “Way Too Early with Willie Geist,” which aired at 5:30 a.m., right before “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.
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In 2010, Geist got his replacement Matt Laueron “The Today Show.” He became the official co-host of “Today” in 2012, as well as the show’s newsreader. He left “Way Too Early” shortly after being named co-host of “Today.” In 2016 he was the host of the show “Sunday Today”, which was appointed in April of that year. In addition, Geist has contributed to NBC Sports and NBC News coverage of all of the 2010 Olympics. Geist was the solo anchor of NBC’s hour-long coverage of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting on the morning of June 12, 2016. He was at talk shows. for seven hours straight in a nationally broadcast NBC News special. Along with “Today,” Geist won the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for similar coverage on August 4, 2019, following the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Over the years,
He also hosts the popular “Sunday Sitdown” podcast, which features full, unedited versions of his Sunday “Today” TV profile interviews.
In addition to his successful career as a news anchor, Geist did voice work on “Kung Fu Panda 3,” voicing Sum alongside Al Roker’s Dim, in which their characters play twin panda brothers who are related to Po. Geist has made cameos in several other TV shows and movies. Geist is a frequent guest on Andy Cohen’s late-night Bravo show “Watch What Happens Live.” Geist has twice appeared in People magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive” issues, both in 2012 and 2017.
Personal life: Geist met his future wife, Christina Sharkey, in middle school in Ridgewood, New Jersey. They started dating in high school and the lovers got married on May 24, 2003 in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The couple has two children: Lucie Joy and George William.
Geist is a registered independent voter. He serves on the board of directors of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease Research. The father suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Geist is also a board member of Operation Men, a UCLA Medical Center organization that aims to provide free surgery and care to America’s most seriously injured military veterans.
