Wanda Sykes Net Worth 2022, Age, Wife, Husband, Children, Height, Family, Parents, Movies, TV Shows

Wanda Sykes

Read the complete write-up of Wanda Sykes net worth, age, wife, children, height, family, parents, salary, movies, tv shows, education as well as other information you need to know.

Introduction

Wanda Sykes is an American stand-up comedian, actress, producer and writer. She was first recognized for her work as a writer on The Chris Rock Show, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is also known for her roles on CBS’ The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–10), HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001–present), and ABC’s Black-ish (2015–present).

Sykes currently stars in the Netflix original series The Upshaws which premiered on May 12, 2021, with Kim Fields and Mike Epps, and has appeared in the HBO Max comedy series The Other Two, as well as playing Allegra Durado, a new, powerful, and “messy”-brained partner in a legal firm on Paramount+’s acclaimed The Good Fight.

She has also had a career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Evan Almighty (2007), and License to Wed (2007), as well as voicing characters in animated films such as Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Brother Bear 2 (all in 2006), Rio (2011), the subsequent films of the Ice Age franchise (2012-2016), and UglyDolls (2019).

Early life

NameWanda Sykes
Net Worth$12 million
Salary$2 million
OccupationComedian, Actress, Producer, Writer
Age58 years
Height1.68m
Wanda Sykes net worth 2022

Wanda Yvette Sykes was born on March 7, 1964 (age 58 years) in Portsmouth, Virginia, United States. She is the daughter of Marion Louise Sykes and Harry Ellsworth Sykes. Her parents moved to Maryland when she was in third grade. Her mother, Marion Louise (née Peoples), worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a U.S. Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. She has an older brother, Harry.

Sykes’s family history was researched for an episode of the 2012 PBS genealogy program Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. Her ancestry was traced back to a 1683 court case involving her ancestor, Elizabeth Banks, a free white woman and indentured servant, who gave birth to a biracial child, Mary Banks, fathered by a slave, who inherited her mother’s free status. According to historian Ira Berlin, a specialist in the history of American slavery, the Sykes family history is “the only such case that I know of in which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late 17th century to the present.”

She attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. After college, her first job was as a contracting specialist at the National Security Agency, where she worked for five years.

Career

Wanda Sykes began her stand-up career at a Coors Light Super Talent Showcase in Washington, DC, where she performed for the first time in front of a live audience in 1987 after following a role with the National Security Agency (NSA). She continued to perform at local venues while at the NSA until 1992 when she moved to New York City. One of her early TV appearances was Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam in the early 1990s, where she shared the stage with Adele Givens, J. B. Smoove, D. L. Hughley, Bernie Mac, & Bill Bellamy.

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Sykes edited a book entitled Polyrhythms – The Musician’s Guide, by Peter Magadini while Working for the Hal Leonard publishing house. Her first big break came when opening for Chris Rock at Caroline’s Comedy Club. In 1997, she joined the writing team on The Chris Rock Show and also made many appearances on the show. The writing team was nominated for four Emmys, and in 1999, won for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Special.

She has appeared in the films Pootie Tang and on TV shows such as Curb Your Enthusiasm. In 2003, she starred in her own short-lived Fox network sitcom, Wanda at Large. The same year, Sykes appeared in an hour-long Comedy Central special, Tongue Untied. That network also ranked her No. 70 on its list of the 100 greatest all-time stand-ups. She served as a correspondent for HBO’s Inside the NFL, hosted Comedy Central’s popular show Premium Blend, and voiced a recurring character named Gladys on Comedy Central’s puppet show Crank Yankers.

Wanda Sykes also had a short-lived show on Comedy Central called Wanda Does It. In addition to her film and television work, she is also an author. She wrote Yeah, I Said It, a book of humorous observations on various topics, published in September 2004. In 2006, she landed a recurring role as Barb, opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus, on the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine; she became a series regular during the series’ third season in 2008.

Sykes also guest starred in the Will & Grace episode “Buy, Buy Baby” in 2006. She provided voices for the 2006 films Over the Hedge, Barnyard, and Brother Bear 2. She had a part in My Super Ex-Girlfriend and after playing in Evan Almighty, had a bit part in License to Wed. Sykes’s first HBO Comedy Special, entitled W anda Sykes: Sick & Tired, premiered on October 14, 2006; it was nominated for a 2007 Emmy Award.

In 2008, Wanda Sykes performed as part of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Tour for LGBT rights. In October 2008, Sykes appeared in a television ad for the Think Before You Speak Campaign, an advertising campaign by GLSEN aimed at curbing homophobic slang in youth communities. In the 30-second spot, she uses humor to scold a teenager for saying “that’s so gay” when he really means “that is so bad”.

In March 2009, Sykes became the host of a late-night talk show on Saturdays on Fox, The Wanda Sykes Show which was scheduled to premiere on November 7, 2009. In April 2009, she was named in Out magazine’s “Annual Power 50 List”, landing at number 35.

In May 2009, Sykes was the featured entertainer for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, becoming both the first African American woman and the first openly LGBT person to get the role. Cedric the Entertainer had been the first African American to become a featured entertainer in 2005. At this event, Sykes made controversial headlines as she responded to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s comments regarding President Barack Obama. Limbaugh, in reference to Obama’s presidential agenda, had said “I hope he fails”. In response, Sykes quipped: “I hope his Limbaugh’s kidneys fail, how ’bout that? Needs a little waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”

Wanda Sykes’s second comedy special, Wanda Sykes: I’ma Be Me premiered on HBO in October 2009. November 2009 saw the premiere of The Wanda Sykes Show, which starts with a monologue and continues with a panel discussion in a similar format to Bill Maher’s shows Real Time with Bill Maher and Politically Incorrect.

Sykes appeared as Miss Hannigan in a professional theatre production of Annie at The Media Theatre in Media, PA, a suburb southwest of Philadelphia. In her first appearance in a musical, she played the role from November 23 to December 12, 2010, and again from January 12 to 23, 2011. She voices the Witch in the Bubble Guppies episode “Bubble Puppy’s Fin-tastic Fairlytale Adventure”.

In 2012, Sykes played the role of Granny in Blue Sky Studios’ Ice Age: Continental Drift. In 2016, she returned to the role in Ice Age: Collision Course. However, in May 2013, Sykes was a featured entertainer at Olivia Travel’s 40th anniversary Music & Comedy Festival in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. In 2013, Sykes appeared in eight episodes of Amazon’s Alpha House, a political comedy series written by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.

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Wanda Sykes plays Rosalyn DuPeche, a Democratic Senator from Illinois and the next-door neighbor of four Republican senators living together in a house on Capitol Hill. Sykes also appeared in Season Two, which became available in October 2014. The series was canceled after the second season. In 2018, Sykes became the head writer for the revived tenth season of Roseanne. This attracted attention due to Roseanne’s far-right and conspiratorial views.

Sykes announced on May 29, 2018, on Twitter that she would no longer be working on the series after a since-deleted Twitter rant by Roseanne Barr about Valerie Jarrett. In 2021, Sykes began starring in the Netflix sitcom The Upshaws. Sykes co-hosted the 94th Academy Awards with Regina Hall and Amy Schumer on March 27, 2022.

Other works

Wanda Sykes publicly expressed being devastated when California voters passed state Proposition 8. She said: “with the legislation that they passed, I can’t sit by and just watch. I just can’t do it.” She has continued to be active in same-sex marriage issues hosting events and emceeing fundraisers. She has also worked with PETA on promoting dog anti-chaining legislation in her home state. She has been an outspoken supporter of Detroit’s Ruth Ellis Center after the organization’s staff sent Sykes a letter asking her to visit during her 2010 tour’s stop in Detroit.

Sykes has been nominated for fourteen Primetime Emmys, with one win (in 1999) for “Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music or Program.” In 2001, she won the American Comedy Award for “Funniest Female Stand-Up Comic.” She won a Comedy Central Commie Award for “Funniest TV Actress” in 2003. In 2010 she won the GLAAD Stephen F. Kolzak Award. In 2015 she won the Activism in the Arts honor at the Triumph Awards.

Sykes only came out to her conservative mother Marion and father Harry when she was 40, who both initially had difficulty accepting her homosexuality. They declined to attend her wedding with Alex, which led to a brief period of estrangement; they have since reconciled with Sykes.

Illness

Wanda Sykes announced during a September 19, 2011, appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that she had been diagnosed earlier in the year with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Although DCIS is a non-invasive “stage zero breast cancer”, Sykes had elected to have a bilateral mastectomy in order to lower her chances of getting breast cancer. Sykes splits time between Media, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and Cherry Grove, New York.

Wife

Wanda Sykes is married to his wife Alex Sykes, they had their wedding in 2008. His wife is a Frenchwoman. However, Wanda was married to her first husband record producer Dave Hall from 1991 to 1998. In November 2008, she publicly came out as a lesbian while at a same-sex marriage rally in Las Vegas regarding Proposition 8. A month earlier, Sykes married her wife Alex Niedbalski, a Frenchwoman, whom she met in 2006. The couple also became parents in April 2009, when Niedbalski gave birth to a pair of fraternal twins, a daughter and a son, named Olivia and Lucas. As of mid-2022, Wanda and his wife Alex Sykes are still married.

Wanda Sykes net worth

How much is Wanda Sykes worth? Wanda Sykes net worth is estimated at around $12 million. Her main source of income is from her career as a comedian, actor, and writer. Sykes salary per month with other career earnings is over $2 million annually. She is one of the richest and most influential comedians in the United States. Wanda Sykes stands at an appealing height of 1.68m and has a good body weight which suits her personality.