Ian Somerhalder is recounting the lessons of entrepreneurship. In a candid conversation with E! News' Will Marfuggi at the Beverage Forum in Manhattan Beach, California, on April 28th, the Rules of Attraction star shared insights into how he and his wife, Nikki Reed, rebounded from a disastrous business venture that left them deep in debt.
"I retired from acting seven years ago," Ian shared exclusively. "After a financial upheaval from building a business that I didn't build properly and due to fraud, it put my wife and me into an eight-figure hole." Specifically, he revealed that "it all came crashing down" after he made personal guarantees to a bank for an unnamed clean energy company, amounting to eight figures.
Years later, he credits the Twilight actress with helping them reach financial stability. "Eight figures is a hard hole to climb out of," he explained. "But Nikki and I did it. You know, she really negotiated us out of this deal, and we sold houses, paintings, cars, watches, everything."
Looking back, the Vampire Diaries star—who is now a co-founder of multiple successful business initiatives, including Brother's Bond Bourbon with former costar Paul Wesley—noted that he "should have been retiring off of one of the biggest TV shows in the world" instead of "starting companies that were not gonna pay me possibly ever."
But the 47-year-old—a dad to 8-year-old daughter Bodhi and a 2-year-old son with Nikki—has learned valuable lessons since then. After all, Ian's latest pastime has taught him valuable lessons in business. "I've just started learning how to be a pilot," he explained. "You plan as much for when things don't go right as when they do."
As for his advice for anyone starting a business with their spouse? "Make it fun," The Lost actor emphasized. "Remember, it's supposed to be fun." He added, "Find the beauty in all of it."
Previously, Ian shared more about the role his wife of 11 years played in getting them out of "a true nightmare," which occurred while he was building an "important" company at the same time he was playing Damon on The Vampire Diaries from 2009 to 2017.
"This woman here decided that she didn't want to see her husband ruin his body/mind/spirit and pulled up her bootstraps and got down in the trenches assembling a team to get to the negotiating table to find a way out," Ian wrote on Instagram in 2021. "She devoted her life to getting me out of that mess and it almost killed her along the way." He added, "I am where I am BECAUSE of this woman."
