RHOBH: Jennifer Tilly reveals her surprising 'Simpsons' connection
By Lacey Womack
Before Jennifer Tilly joined the 14th season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Jennifer Tilly was known for her work in the acting world and for her time as a poker pro in the mid-2000s.
Although she's best known by many for playing Tiffany Valentine in the Child's Play movies, she recently revealed that there's another famous media franchise that's been paying the bills for her and it seriously shocked RHOBH fans.
This season 14 newcomer has made the fact that she's very rich no secret, but the fact that Jennifer Tilly is making money from an iconic animated TV series was a bombshell that left Real Housewives fans shook on the December 3 episode of the series.
Jennifer Tilly revealed that The Simpsons is paying her bills
According to Jennifer Tilly, her marriage to Sam Simon, who she was married to for seven years from 1984 to 1991, has entitled her to "a piece" of The Simpsons royalties following their divorce.
Considering The Simpsons started airing in 1989 and the two of them got a divorce only two years later, she's been getting royalties from the show for over three decades -- and much of that has been after the show really hit its stride and became the hugely famous series that we're all familiar with today.
"My ex-husband was Sam Simon, who createdThe Simpsons. I was married to him for seven years. We were together for about 10 years, and then when we got divorced, I got a piece ofThe Simpsonsin the divorce settlement," she revealed on the episode.
Sam Simon, who passed away in 2015 following a three-year battle with colorectal cancer, was one of the three people who originally created the animated series alongside James L. Brooks and Matt Groening. This means that even after his death, Jennifer Tilly's divorce settlement has entitled her to a portion of the royalties for the iconic show.
The new "friend of" joked that she thanks her ex-husband every day and admitted that when she got a divorce, she had no idea how big the show her ex-husband helped to create was going to get later on or for how many seasons it was going to air. While discussing her divorce settlement, Jennifer said, "Nobody knew that The Simpsons was going to go on for trillions of years."
Even though Jennifer Tilly is super rich and has had quite a career with being an actress and playing poker, she said that being on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has been a dream for her. She told Vulture that being on the Bravo series as a friend of the housewives is "like working with Martin Scorcese" to her.
"My boyfriend always says if he got $40 million, he wants to go into space and experience zero gravity. To me, being on Housewives is experiencing zero gravity. I was more excited to meet Kyle Richards and Erika Jayne and the other ladies than I was when I met Elizabeth Taylor," she told the publication.
Jennifer Tilly and the rest of the Beverly Hills housewives can be seen on Bravo every Tuesday at 8/7c on Bravo and streaming the following day on Peacock.