She came for the cake. She left with a fortune. And somewhere between the giggles and the ganache, she built a media empire no one saw coming

Alison Hammond has managed to create a huge net worth for herself since she shot to fame on Big Brother – but things haven’t always looked so good for the TV star

Alison Hammond has managed to create a huge net worth for herself in the two decades since she shot to fame on Big Brother. The TV star, 50, has carved out an impressive career on screen in recent years, having been promoted from competitions host on This Morning to regular presenter.

She is often seen providing relief cover, and frequently sits on the famous sofa alongside former X Factor host Dermot O’Leary on Fridays as they fill in for Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard. It’s thought that she earns £600,000 annually for This Morning.

As well as fronting ITV’s flagship magazine show, Alison also hosts For The Love Of Dogs for the network, having taken over from the late Paul O’Grady following his tragic death. In 2023, she replaced Matt Lucas as a co-host of The Great British Bake Off and returned to screens for its latest series alongside Noel Fielding when the latest series of the Channel 4 favourite kicked off last week.

She’s also done the rounds of all of the nation’s favourite reality shows, enjoying a stint on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014, and four years prior to that, she braved the I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! jungle alongside Gillian McKeith, eventual winner Stacey Solomon and a host of others. Whilst her exact fee is not know, typical sums for appearances on these sort of programmes is often between £50,000 and £200,000, reports The Express.

Earlier this year, she landed her own BBC programme Alison Hammond’s Big Weekend, in which she interviewed celebrities like Little Mix star Perrie Edwards and Spice Girl Mel B.

Last year, she topped up her wages by returning to her hometown of Birmingham to star in their pantomime production of Peter Pan for the second year running. This year, stars such as panto legend Christopher Biggins and Steps singer Faye Tozer are heading up the festive show at the famous Hippodrome, but all of this has earned Alison a net worth that is estimated to be between £1 million and £4 million.

But for the presenter, money hasn’t always been so good. When Alison applied to appear on the third series of Big Brother, during which she is best remembered for breaking a table, she had been a struggling holiday rep and decided to apply for the programme because she was in debt.

During an appearance on the Table Manners podcast, Alison, who found fame alongside Big Brother winner Kate Lawler and the late Jade Goody, explained to Jessie and Lennie Ware: “At the time I had a debt of about £3,000, which at the time I was absolutely traumatised by!

“Because every time I got paid, I just couldn’t make that debt go down, so I thought, ‘That would be a good idea to win £70,000 for going on a TV show.’”

But finding TV fame didn’t necessarily spell the end of Alison’s money worries, and she found herself struggling again once television work temporarily dried up in 2007.

She got a job at the local hairdressers, but if a customer recognised her, she would say she was helping out, then “I’d answer the phone, do a few blow dries,” she says. Her son, Aidan, still very young, was at home while her mum helped them financially.”

When Alison recalled the story in the Guardian, she started to cry, as she explained: “It’s not all good all of the time. But I was all right, you know? That’s television, it’s fickle and it’s part of my journey, part of my power.”