Tom Leykis Net Worth

Net Worth	$ 25,000,000
Real name	Thomas Joseph Leykis
Source of Wealth	Radio Broadcasting
Profession	Radio and TV host
Spouse/Partner	Single
Date of Birth	Aug 1, 1956
Zodiac	Leo
Age	66
Gender	Male
Pronoun	He/him
Height	180 cm / 5 ft 10 inch
Nationality	American
Siblings	3

Tom Leykis's net worth is estimated at $25 million 💵

Biography and early life

The American radio star Tom Leykis was born in the Bronx, New York, USA, on August 1st, 1956. His father, Harry, was a union leader, and his mother, Laura, was a housewife. Tom has three more siblings, two sisters, and a brother, and his family is of Irish and Jewish descent.

When he was still a child, he moved with his family to Selden, Long Island, where he finished high school at Newfield High School. Later, he moved away from living with his family and studied at Fordham University but did not finish his education there because of financial issues.

Career

Tom’s career started at a very early age when he was just 14 years old and had the role of a fill-host for the classic rock New York radio station WBAB^[1] . Afterward, he worked as the host’s sidekick for Mark Simone’s WPIX-FM ^[2]comedy talk show, ' The Simone Phone.’

Career-wise, things got more serious in the mid-70s’ when Tom hosted his first public access TV show, ‘The Grafitti Hour’; however, he later left WPIX and was open to exploring other options.

His next career venture was WBAI ^[3]- a New York radio station, but only briefly because he left there in 1981 and went to Albany to work at New York’s radio station WQBK^[4] .

From then on, almost everybody in the business recognized Tom’s talents, and he started receiving hosting offers which made him even more confident that he was on the right career track. So, he was offered to be a full-time host in Staunton, Virginia.

Fun fact: Tom believes his current radio career started because of an incident in the 80s when his then-girlfriend locked him out of their apartment because she thought he didn’t earn enough money. Since then, Tom credits that important events in his life started happening.

On February 27, 1984, ‘The Tom Leykis Show’ was aired for the first time on WNWS in Miami as a replacement for the night show hosted by a fellow radio host, now deceased Neil Rogers.

In 1985, Tom started working at Phoenix’s KFYI^[5]- commercial news and talk radio station but left in 1987 due to differences with the station’s management.

After Phoenix, Tom moved to Los Angeles and worked for KFI^[6]as the host of a talk-radio program from 1988 to 1992 but was dismissed due to Leykis's inappropriate on-air comments.

From LA, Tom moved to Boston and worked for WRKO.

But that job also did not last long because, in 1994, Tom returned to California and began the national syndicate program for which he got the most recognition and fame - ‘The Tom Leykis Show.’

At first, the talk show was political, but Tom broadened the topics to relationships, religion, and many other exciting issues to make things more spicey. The talk show aired until 2010.

📺 You might also like to read the story of “Man v. Food"'s Adam Richman.

Most famous for

Tom is most famous for being the radio host of his somewhat controversial radio show ‘The Tom Leykis', which premiered for 14 years in a row, from 1994, until 2009.

Controversies that happened on “The Tom Leykis Show” and were documented as confessions on-air

• In 1997, in the Tom Laykis Show, Tom identified individuals by name on-air for performing controversial practices like forcible sodomy - Vanessa Perhack accusing Marv Albert. [ ]
• In 2006, a woman named Crystal Mangum [ ], an exotic dancer and escort, falsely accused three students from Duke University (members of the lacrosse team) of rape, battery, and sodomy.
• In November 2006, a female listener called the show and confessed to shooting the father of her child because he did not want to pay child support.
• A 13-year-old girl named Vili Fualaau was a rape victim by teacher Mary Kay Letourneau.
• In 2003 Leykis also raised another controversy when he mentioned Katelyn Faber, the woman who accused the now-deceased Koby Bryant of sexual assault.

Relationships

Tom has been married four times and has had no children with either of these women. His longest marriage was with his fourth wife, Susan Leykis, from 1993 - 2003. This woman filed a police report against him for assaulting and threatening to kill her, for which Tom was sentenced to a year of probation.

He was also married to TV reporter Christina Gonzales but divorced her because she allegedly cheated on him.

Tom’s shortest marriage lasted only one year, with a woman from Seattle in 1989.

Specific info

• Tom is an atheist
• He has said that even though he was married four times and has impregnated these women, they all had abortions.
• In 2016, Tom had an obsessive fan who is believed to have called the show, which Tom was hosting more than 200 times a week, and threatened Leykis himself.
• In 1998, Tom Laykis was sued by a woman named Karen Carpenter, who claimed to have suffered from post-traumatic stress due to Tom’s untasteful and sexual comments about her on air.
• Tom has publicly recommended young men to be more focused on their careers and education rather than being distracted by relationships and women, depicting women as ‘dream killers’ - 'The Leykis 101' program in which he intended to serve as a father figure to his men-listeners.

Conclusion

Radio star personality, Tom Leykis, is estimated at over $25 million net worth as of 2022 and earned his fortune from being a host to one of the most controversial radio shows in America. Either way, his show’s ratings were always high, and people of all ages loved the show.

Now, at the age of 66, Tom still has the role of a host but with another content nature, including wine and food, a radio show called ‘The Tasting Room with Tom Leykis.’

FAQs

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