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- ‘Natalie ‘Nadya’ Suleman’s former publicist revealed the mother of 14 made at least $500,000 in three months at the height of her media frenzy in 2009
- Two years later, Suleman’s lawyer informed her that she was running out of money and dangerously close to losing her home
- In dire times, she considered auctioning off her maternity bras and underwear in an attempt to make money
Natalie ‘Nadya’ Suleman’s financial struggles were more dire than many knew.
During the fourth episode of AE’s docuseries, Confessions of Octomom, the mother of 14 shared just how expensive life became following the birth of her children. At the height of her notoriety in 2009, she was raking in money, but it still wasn’t enough to support her family.
“I helped make Nadya at least $500,000 in those first three months I was with her, at least,” her former publicist, Victor Muñoz, says. “I stopped counting after 450, 475, but there were many checks after that.”
But, Suleman, 49, explains, “Money went like water, it did, because of the overhead. The overhead was about $35,000 or so a month.”
Muñoz expected to be making a sufficient amount of money, “as much as a manager,” he noted. However, that’s not what transpired. Nadya’s father, Ed Doud Suleman, instead informed him that she would not sign any official documents naming Muñoz as her publicist or manager, and if he wanted to get paid, he’d have to go make his own money “and not take anything from hers.”
Muñoz, who did as Ed suggested, didn’t know how other people working with Nadya were getting paid. However, her manager Jeff Czech explained, “For the most part, helping Nadya was pro bono.”
He continued, “Even if I intended to take a cut somewhere along the line, inevitably she needed the money. And so, what’s a person to do?”
In 2011, two years after giving birth to her eight children, Nadya was struggling financially, and Czech, who was helping Nadya pay her mortgage, informed her there was barely any money left to afford the home she and her children were living in.
Family friend Rebecca Mercado explained that bad press and a lack of press opportunities led to the financial strain, ultimately resulting in Nadya getting behind on her mortgage payments.
“She just wanted kids,” Czech said, “but she never really thought through the ramifications of having that many children without another parent at least, without an income earner. She obviously couldn’t go out on a job and make the income and stay home with them. So I think the bottom line is she really didn’t plan it out too well.”
He told Nadya that her money was drying up and that she was in danger of losing her house. Czech even went as far as to go to her home and fix things for her. “I felt, at times, that I was sort of being the other parent … She started sometimes asking for fatherly advice,” he revealed.
Czech went on to have a serious conversation with the mom of 14, telling her, “Look, I can’t keep you alive forever.”
Eventually Nadya went to extremes to try and save her home.
She teamed up with media personality David “Tattoo” Gonzalez to host a garage sale (with paid photo opportunities) to raise $10,000. He even suggested that she wash and sign her maternity undergarments to auction off, but she was reluctant.
“I’m not thinking celebrity s—. I’m totally now thinking with my heart and as my friend,” the shock jock explained. “‘You did something. You’re going to be famous for this s— forever. Run with it, Nadya, run with it! You can’t hide from it now. You need money, you need to survive. Run with it!’”
It’s unclear if she ended up auctioning off her underwear and bras as Gonzalez suggested, however, the two do move forward with another money-making schemes.
In a skit, Nadya dressed up as a Dominatrix while Gonzalez portrayed a baby, donning a diaper and bonnet with an adult-sized rattle in hand.
Looking back, she said of the video, “Now it’s comedy, but in retrospect, it was one of the most ludicrous, most ridiculous, embarrassing little gigs I’ve done.”
One of their less jaw-dropping stunts involved Nadya being a “celebrity bartender” in a restaurant for a night in 2010, earning her about $5,000 for around two hours of work.
“She wasn’t even really bartending . . . She was just standing behind the bar and being Octomom,” Gonzalez claims.
While speaking with PEOPLE earlier this month, Nadya opened up about her financial struggles. “There were so many false narratives that the public didn’t know what to believe,” she said at the time. “They were fed erroneous information.”
Media reported stories of the mom using government assistance to conceive her children following detailed reports about her cosmetic surgeries, which she said were fabricated.
“I did not use taxpayers’ money. I’d saved so much money working as a psychiatric technician at a state psych hospital. I saved well over a hundred thousand dollars. I used all of that money,” Nadya explained. “Instead of buying a house, I bought in vitros. I also had an inheritance close to $60,000 that paid for it too, which I’m not proud of. It should have gone for my older kids. I also got student loans, but I paid for everything, period.”
Nadya first rose to fame in 2009 when she gave birth to a set of octuplets. Her fame peaked around the same year and slowly began to decline, leading to the mother of 14 scrabbling to find a way to support herself and her children. The show was announced back in February as a look back at the rise and fall of her media fame and answers the question: where is she now?
Confessions of Octomom airs on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
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