Harvey Levin is an American television producer, lawyer, legal analyst, and celebrity reporter who has a net worth of $20 million. Harvey Levin is most widely known as the founder and managing editor of TMZ.com, a celebrity gossip site. Harvey does not own TMZ. The site was launched as a joint venture between AOL and Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros. For most of the site’s history, it was a subsidiary of WarnerMedia. In September 2021, WarnerMedia sold TMZ to Fox Entertainment in a deal valued at roughly $50 million.
Salary
Between TMZ and People’s Court, Harvey earns at least $5 million per year in base salary and other earnings.
Early Life
Harvey Robert Levin was born in Los Angeles, California, on September 2, 1950. His family is Jewish. He graduated in 1972 from Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, Los Angeles. He then continued his education by completing his B.A. degree in political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and went on to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School with a J.D. in 1975.
Early Legal Career
Levin practiced as a licensed attorney in the state of California from December 1975 to January 1996. He gained wider public recognition in 1978 when he participated in several public debates regarding California Proposition 13, which was introduced that year. After entering the public eye, he began contributing legal advice on a radio show, which is where he earned the nickname “Doctor Law.” He also began writing columns for the Los Angeles Times, something he continued to do for seven years.
Additionally, he taught law at the University of Miami Law School in the mid-1970s and also taught at Whittier College School of Law in Costa Mesa, California.
Entertainment Career
Levin broadened his reach when he moved to television in 1982 and began covering legal issues for KNBC-TV. He then moved to KCBS-TV, where he did investigative reporting and legal analysis for ten years. A notable case he covered during this period was the O.J. Simpson murder case. In 1997, Levin became co-executive producer and the on-air legal anchor for the arbitration-based reality court show The People’s Court, produced by Warner Bros. Building off of his time on The People’s Court, he released the book The
People’s Court: How to Tell It to the Judge in 1985, in which he reviews and comments on cases from the show. As of June 2020, he is still a presenter on the show and won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program for The People’s Court in 2015.
Other shows he has created include Celebrity Justice, which ran from 2002 to 2005; Famous in 12 (2014), which only aired five episodes before getting canceled; and Rock & A Hard Place in 2008. He also produced Beyond Twisted (2009), which only ran for one season. Since 2016, Levin has served as the host of the weekly show OBJECTified, which is prerecorded and airs on the Fox News Channel.
