Rank #3045
Sheila Johnson
Net worth $1.2B
Cable TV, hotels · United States
- Born
- Jan 25, 1949
- Age
- 77
- Source
- Cable TV, hotels
- Residence
- The Plains, Virginia
- Citizenship
- United States
- Marital status
- Married
- Children
- 2
- Education
- Bachelor of Arts/Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Net worth over time
Biography
- Sheila Johnson cofounded cable TV channel Black Entertainment Television in 1979 with her then-husband Robert Johnson. Viacom bought it for $3 billion in 2001.
- After her divorce in 2002, she sold her BET shares and has since invested in a portfolio of hotels known as the Salamander Collection, as well as other real estate and horses.
- Her Innisbrook resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, hosts an annual PGA Tour championship.
- She was an executive producer of the critically-acclaimed 2013 film The Butler, which tells the story of a former slave turned White House employee.
- Through her investment in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, she owns stakes in three Washington sports teams: the WNBA's Mystics, NBA's Wizards and NHL's Capitals.
- Johnson is the only black woman to own stakes in three professional sports teams.
- Johnson's parents enrolled her in an all-white school in early 1950s Kentucky before desegregation was federally mandated.