The onetime rapper turned podcast behemoth Joe Budden is reportedly making a solid seven-figure haul each month from The Joe Budden Podcast’s Patreon alone, the result of a cushioned investment thanks in part to a recent New York Times profile.
That’s right–Budden is earning around $1 million each month from a highly loyal viewer base of roughly 70,000 per year. With membership plans ranging from $5 to $50, fans are proving they are willing to pay to hear the unfiltered takes of a man who was once America’s most notorious professional contrarian, who turned down all manner of big money deals in the name of independence.
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And the craziest part is, we may never have known any of this if it weren’t for Budden “accidentally” dropping a screenshot showing more than $902,000 in earnings in one month. The image went viral like a hot take on Twitter. Budden later confessed that the leak was less of a spontaneous, accidental drop and more of a calculated mistake.
“My highlight, I told Ian, ‘Yo, do me a favor, big dog, on a FaceTime. Hey, forget all this other s###. I got to get this $30 million on him,’” he said, confirming what many had thought: Joe was playing chess, not checkers.
With the new deal, Budden is previewing the music and offering personal video greetings to his audience members, who have contributed enough that, according to Patreon, Budden is now the most successful creator on the platform. And if he maintains his current pace, forecasts suggest he could accumulate $12 million by late 2025, all from listener support.
It’s quite a run for someone whose previous media jobs didn’t exactly include a golden parachute. Budden famously left Spotify, saying the platform had undervalued the cultural impact of his podcast. And before that? He was a co-host of the Complex show, Everyday Struggle, for a relatively meager $500 a week.
When a $44 million offer landed at his feet in the early 2020s, Budden said no thanks. Why? Control, Ownership, Legacy. He increased his bets on himself, and the payoff has been complete.
After being best known for his 2003 hit “Pump It Up” and his time in the rap supergroup Slaughterhouse, Budden reinvented himself as one of the most opinionated and unpredictable voices in the podcast game. He’s loud, He’s blunt, He’s polarizing, and now, he’s paid.
And this sudden windfall has had a similarly playful effect behind the mic, as well. Since the leak went viral, Budden joked that it sparked “a wave of salary requests” from his co-hosts.
From radio spins to raw, extended dialogue, Joe Budden has shown that something as simple as content on your terms, if built the right way, can grow into a multimillion-dollar machine. And he’s just getting started.
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