Sitcom writer, stand-up artist, rapper and actor Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, has a reported net worth of $12 million.
Donald McKinley Glover was born on September 25, 1983 to Beverly and Donald Glover Sr. at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Donald Glover studied at DeKalb School of the Arts, where his high school yearbook mentioned him as “Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons”. In 2006, he graduated in dramatic writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
How did Glover make his millions?
True to the forecast, Glover’s ‘spec script’ for The Simpsons impressed TV producer David Miner and actress Tina Fey, who asked him to write for the sitcom 30 Rock. His writing skills with occasional cameos (2006-2009) won him the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Series in 2009.
Glover, associated with Derrick Comedy since 2006, teamed up with the group to write the film Mystery Team (2009); and also starred in it.
For his stand-up comedy and music, Glover adopted the stage name Childish Gambino, but fame found him in September 2009, when he began starring in the sitcom Community, for which he won the 2012 Comedy Award for Breakout Performer of the Year.
In 2010, Glover performed stand-up on Comedy Central and also received the Rising Comedy Star award at Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival.
Almost considered for the role of The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) due to a fan’s viral campaign, Glover went on to voice-act in the series Ultimate Spider-Man (2015).
Glover, who also produces electronic music under the alias mcDJ, released two tracks “Be Alone” (December 2010) and “Freaks and Geeks” (February 2011, whose music video was used in an Adidas ad) from his Extended Play album EP. EP was launched a month later followed by “Troy & Abed’s Christmas Rap”.
Signing on with Glassnote Records in August 2011, he released his first official single “Bonfire”, in September, which was part of his album Camp (November 2011). Weirdo, Glover’s hour-long comedy special was aired on Comedy Central in November 2011.
In 2012, , Gambino released “One Up” along with his brother Stephen Glover aka Steve G. Lover, his mixtape, Royalty and featured in Leona Lewis’ song “Trouble” (seventh place on the UK charts).
Glover wrote, starred and executive produced the FX series Atlanta, in 2013 and also wrote the short film Clapping for the Wrong Reasons, which features “That Power” from his album Camp and songs from another album Because the Internet (2016 Gold certification).
In 2014, RIAA certified “Heartbeat” and “3005” Gold, while Gambino’s song “Crawl” was incorporated into the video game Far Cry 4. His song “Sober” earned him the MTVU Woodies Award for Best Video in 2015.
Premiering in September 2016, Atlanta won the 2017 Golden Globe for Best Music or Comedy TV series and Glover won Best Actor in a Comedy Series. Glover also won the 2016 Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Actor. Atlanta’s success clinched Glover an exclusive contract with FX.
Glover’s upcoming films are Spider-Man: Homecoming (US release on July 7, 2017), an untitled Han Solo film (2018) and a 2019 remake of The Lion King (voicing Simba).
Earlier film appearances include The Muppets (2011), The To Do List (2011) and The Martian (2015).
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