William Shatner is the man of a million urban legends.
Star Trek’s very own William Shatner is a man who is constantly attached to various urban legends throughout his career. Including the myths and urban legends, he covered in his own television series over the years. Yet one that seemingly came out of nowhere is that Shatner made an obscene amount of money doing the Priceline commercials.
Starting with the brand in 1998, Shatner became Priceline’s go-to pitchman for a long time, for nearly 20 years he served as the public face of the brand. In 2013 the brand added another face of the brand in Kaley Cuoco of The Big Bang Theory fame.
The two made for an interesting pair and were billed as a father/daughter tandem, despite Shatner being old enough to be her grandfather or great-grandfather. The two had decent chemistry but over time Shatner has been phased out. Now Cuoco handles the commercial duties after seemingly being given the baton from Shatner.
Yet, during his nearly 20 years with the brand, there’s a rumor that Shanter made nearly $600 million while working for the brand, from his salary and stock investments within the company. That number is, safe to say, more than he probably made in all of his projects combined; with inflation.
So did Shatner make $600 million working with Priceline?
William Shatner did not make $600 million with Priceline
The rumor seems to come from an out-of-context report on the state of Priceline in 2010 from the Toronto Sun, which claimed the website was then-valued at $600 million. Not Shatner. To further go on to debunk the rumor, the then-chairman, and CEO of Priceline Jeffrey Boyd, went on NBC news and revealed that Shatner did not receive $600 million in compensation or stock interest.
While Benzinga revealed in 2020 that Shatner likely made closer to $13 million in total. Which, is actually kind of low considering his run with the brand. That’s less than a million per year.