Louis Walsh Net Worth

What Is Louis Walsh's Net Worth?

Louis Walsh is an Irish entertainment manager and television personality who has a net worth of $150 million. Louis Walsh is best known for being a judge on the British television show "The X Factor." As a band manager, Louis managed Boyzone, which sold over 20 million copies and had nine #1 hits in Ireland. He managed Boyzone member Ronan Keating, who had a #1 hit and sold over four million albums. Walsh has also managed Westlife, Samantha Mumba, Union J, Girls Aloud, and G4. He started on TV in 2001 on "Popstars" in Ireland. Louis has covered for Simon Cowell on "Britain's Got Talent" and "The X Factor USA." In 2004, he became a judge with Cowell and Sharon Osbourne on "The X Factor." Walsh has managed the Overs category three times and the Groups category five times. He was the winning judge on season two and mentored Shayne Ward. A waxwork figure of Louis is featured at Madame Tussauds London. In 2024, he joined the cast of "Celebrity Big Brother."

Early Life

Louis Walsh was born Michael Louis Vincent Walsh on August 5, 1952, in Kiltimagh, County Mayo, Ireland. He is the son of Frank and Maureen Walsh, and he grew up in a Roman Catholic household with eight siblings. Louis attended the Ballaghaderreen boarding school St Nathy's as a teenager, and he told the "Belfast Telegraph" in 2019, "I hated St Nathy's. I didn't fit in. I hated it so much. I wasn't very studious. I wasn't sporty. I remember going asleep in the dormitory bed at night missing my mother's food, my mother's good food. The food in St Nathy's was horrible, like prison. St Nathy's was like prison, like an institution. It was depressing. It was go to bed, pray, study. I hated the place. There was no fun." In the interview, he also said that when he was growing up, his family's home was "always full of people and noise and music."

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Career

In the '90s, Walsh moved to Dublin in pursuit of a career in the music industry. He decided to try to create an Irish version of the British boy band Take That and held open auditions for what would become Boyzone. The band became an international success with four studio albums that were certified Platinum or higher and 19 singles that reached the top 10 on the Irish Singles Chart. Louis later formed another boy band, Westlife, which has had nine #1 albums on the Irish Albums Chart and sold more than 50 million records. Walsh has also managed Samantha Mumba, Bellefire, Six, Girls Aloud, G4, Shayne Ward, Jedward, Wonderland, Union J, Hometown, Shane Filan, and Myles and Connor. Louis made his TV debut on the Irish version of "Popstars" in 2001, then he served as a judge on "Popstars: The Rivals" in the UK. He has been a judge on several seasons of "The X Factor" since 2004, and he launched "Ireland's Got Talent" in 2015. In 2012, he was featured in the ITV docuseries "The Talent Show Story." Walsh became a  judge on "Junk Kouture," a sustainable fashion competition, in 2014, and he competed on the 2016 British reality show "Drive." In 2024, he joined the cast of the 23rd season of "Celebrity Big Brother," finishing in fourth place. On the show, Louis revealed that he had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer called Waldenström macroglobulinemia in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and that it's now "all gone."

(Photo by Niki Nikolova/FilmMagic)

Controversies

When Ronan Keating took a break from Boyzone, Louis continued to manage him as a solo artist. The two later parted ways and had a falling out. Walsh publicly said that Keating "is not a great singer and he's got no personality." Keating later said of Walsh, "That man absolutely tried to ruin me and if he thinks we can ever hug and make up he can forget it. I haven't heard from him in three years and I wouldn't have a problem if I never saw him again. He's not a nice character." Louis and Ronan seemed to have ended their feud by March 2008 when they helped choose " X Factor" finalists for the Groups category. That wasn't Walsh's only controversy regarding members of Boyzone. In 2008, he said that if he had known Stephen Gately was gay when he was putting together Boyzone, he might not have chosen him for the band because "it wasn't cool then to have a gay guy in a band." During a 2014 interview on "The Xtra Factor," Louis groped fellow judge Mel B's buttocks, who understandably became irritated and moved away from him. Walsh stated that he was just " looking after her," and the other judges laughed off the incident. The clip resurfaced in 2018 amid the Me Too movement, and Walsh and the other judges were criticized for their treatment of Mel B.

In 2012, Louis attempted to gain access to documents that allegedly proved that the tabloid "The Sun UK " had paid a man to make a false accusation of sexual assault against him. Walsh's senior counsel told Ireland's High Court that the publication "directed the operation to take out Louis Walsh as a public person." The man who made the allegations was jailed for making the false accusation. Louis sued News Group Newspapers, the publisher of  "The Sun," for defamation of character and was awarded €500,000 in damages and €180,000 in legal costs. In 2015, Walsh was still suffering from panic attacks and paranoid thoughts because of the experience.

Awards and Honours

In 2009, Walsh was named the Mayo Person of the Year. The Mayo Association's announcement of that year's recipient stated, "He is a son of Kiltimagh and retains strong roots in the area through his mother and siblings and he is a regular contributor to numerous charities, albeit quietly. He's extremely proud of where he comes from and will make a wonderful ambassador for Mayo." In 2015, Louis received "The Irish Post's" Outstanding Contribution to Entertainment Award.