Boss at the Ridiculousness factory.
Photo: MTV
For a network that used to control the cultural Zeitgeist, MTV is now just a pile of Ridiculousness episodes in a trench coat, with RuPaul’s Drag Race tenderly placed on top. And Rob Dyrdek is profiting. According to bankruptcy filings from the show’s production company, Superjacket, Ridiculousness‘s longtime emcee Dyrdek makes $32.5 million per year for hosting the show, Bloomberg reports. Not only that, but he’s on track to make $45 million if the show is renewed for 2028 and ’29, which seems altogether possible given that it’s one of the few things airing on MTV these days.
Ridiculousness may be a clip show using stunt fail videos from the internet, but the reason he makes so much is because of the bonkers episode order. The series produces 336 episodes each year, just 29 days off from being one new episode for each day on the calendar. In total, there have been well over 1,500 episodes of the series since it premiered in 2011. For each one, Dyrdek makes money both as an on-camera talent and as an executive producer. The going rate for Ridiculousness episodes is $61,000 per episode as an on-camera fee and $21,000 per episode as a producer, with the extra $10 million being given as bonuses. That performance rate is also on the rise — when he needs to renegotiate, Dyrdek will be making $101,000 per episode as a performer. That means he’s on track to make at least $45 million per year by the end of his contract, before bonuses.
It wasn’t always this way. When Dyrdek started Ridiculousness in 2011, attempting to make a “faster, cooler version” of America’s Funniest Home Videos, he was on season three of his MTV show Rob & Big. At the time, “they would only pay me $35,000 an episode to do Ridiculousness,” Dyrdek told the Trading Secrets podcast in 2021. Who’s laughing at Ridiculousness now? Everybody watching MTV at 2 am, that’s who.
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