Joel Osteen Net Worth & Wife (Victoria)

Joel Osteen, nicknamed – The Smiling Preacher, is an American author and pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston — one of America’s largest churches with more than 50,000 weekly attendees.

Biography

He was born on March 5, 1963, in Houston, Texas, USA, as Joel Scott Osteen.

Joel is one of six children of John Osteen, who founded Lakewood Church in an old feed store on the poor east side of Houston in 1959.

”I grew up with my dad being Pentecostal, and I felt like it was charismatic,” Joel said.

Osteen graduated from Humble High School.

He studied radio and television communications at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa.

Lakewood Church

In 1982, Joel began producing television productions for Lakewood Church at age 20.

He took over Lakewood Church after his father passed away from a heart attack in 1999.

”I didn’t want to, but I just felt inside that I was supposed to,” he later said.

Before that pulpit came a long stretch in a control room. “I worked behind the scenes. I loved doing production and things,” Joel told Larry King on CNN in 2005. Sermons were his father’s department. Never his.

So first Sunday as preacher was a leap with no rehearsal. “And it was odd because I had never preached before. But I just knew I was supposed to do it,” he said in that same CNN hour (he admitted to nerves even years later). Big gamble.

Lakewood Church is now the largest church in America, with over 50,000 members.

”Our church is very diverse, as well, and my goal is to throw a wide net of hope to let people know that God is for them, he’s got a purpose for their life,” he told Wbur.

His weekly televised sermons can be seen in over 100 countries with an estimated viewership of 13 million people.

”My core message is that God is good, that he’s on our side, and even though times are tough and a lot of people are suffering, I believe God can still bring us through and that he has good days in the days ahead,” Osteen said in a 2009 interview with Belief Net.

In 2004, he released the book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential.

”I am what I am today because of what I believed about myself yesterday,” Osteen wrote in the book. ”And I will be tomorrow what I’m believing about myself right now.”

In 2005, Lakewood Church moved into a new local meeting-house, the Compaq Center. In the same year, Joel conducted a 15-city US tour, preaching to large crowds.

A basketball arena with pews

Houston Rockets played in that building from 1975 to 2003.

Lakewood signed a 30-year lease in 2001 and paid $11.8 million up front.

On March 31, 2010, Houston City Council approved the sale of the arena and seven acres of land to the church for $7.5 million (The Christian Post).

Was it a bargain? Former tax assessor Paul Bettencourt told ABC13 that the city got the short end twice: first with the 2001 lease and again with the 2010 sale.

Renovation money came as loan from Bank of America, which first offered $25 million and later agreed to $100 million.

That debt was gone by December 31, 2023.

In January 2024 Joel broke down in tears on stage when he told the congregation: “We paid cash. We paid it off. So now we officially own the building.”

His explanation for the crowds, given to the Associated Press in 2004, was a dinner metaphor: “It’s sort of like to me it’s a good restaurant […] if you’ve got good food, people will come”.

In 2006, Osteen was named one of Ten Most Fascinating People by Barbara Walters.

In 2010, he bought a 17,000-square-foot stone mansion in the Tall Timbers subdivision in River Oaks for $10.5 million. The property has a pool house, a one-bedroom guest house, three elevators, six bathrooms, and six bedrooms. It is surrounded by an ornamental fence.

On November 10, 2020, Osteen published the book ”Empty Out the Negative.”

Joel Osteen promoted the “2026 Today’s Word” devotional calendar.

Floodwater, a cracked safe and one Sunday in February

August 2017 was rough on Lakewood’s reputation.

Hurricane Harvey dumped as much as 51 inches of rain on parts of Texas, and on Sunday the church posted on Facebook that it was “inaccessible due to severe flooding,” which social media users saw as doors shut on purpose while the fourth-largest city in the country lay under water.

Joel answered on Good Morning America: “We were here for people. We were a shelter.” Lakewood began to take in evacuees on Tuesday afternoon.

Three years earlier, in March 2014, someone got into Lakewood’s safe and left with $200,000 in cash and $400,000 in checks, Houston police said.

No arrest followed.

In November 2021 a plumber who came to fix a loose toilet moved insulation and hundreds of envelopes fell out of the wall. Police said evidence from recovered checks connected the find to 2014 theft, and the church said the stolen funds were fully insured.

Wife

On April 4, 1987, Joel Osteen married Victoria Osteen.

She serves as a co-pastor at Lakewood Church in Houston. Victoria founded the Lakewood Church Women’s Ministry in 2003.

They first met in 1985 after Joel entered a jewelry store where Victoria was working. About two years later, Victoria and Joel were married.

”It seems like it was just yesterday when I walked into the jewelry store, and you took my breath away,” Joel wrote on Twitter in March 2020. He added: ”Little did I know then, you’re outer beauty is only surpassed by your inner beauty.”

What he came in for was a watch battery. Victoria told Larry King herself in 2005: “In my family’s jewelry store. He came in to buy a watch battery.”

The first date comes with a twist.

“I took her to a basketball game there at the Compaq Center where we have church now,” Joel said on CNN in December 2006.

In August 2008 the marriage landed in court news.

A Continental Airlines flight attendant sued Victoria over a December 2005 dispute about a spill on her first-class armrest and sought $405,000 in damages. A Houston jury found that Victoria did not assault her, after about two and a half hours of deliberation.

Joel’s reaction outside court: “It’s a great vindication and shows us the faithfulness of God.”

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Children

They have two children, son Jonathan Osteen (b. in 1995) and daughter Alexandra Osteen (b. in 1999).

Mama Dodie

Joel’s mother, Dolores “Dodie” Osteen, co-founded Lakewood with John Osteen on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1959. She died of natural causes at her home on July 30, 2025, at 91.

Joel posted the news on X: “Known as ‘Mama Dodie’ to the entire Lakewood family, together, we celebrate her amazing life and lasting legacy.”

Height

5′ 11½” (1.82 m)

Quotes

”You need some eagles in your life: people that soar, people that are doing great things, people that have a great attitude.”

“Run to God, not away from Him. You can be open and honest with God.”

”Just because you don’t see anything happening on the outside doesn’t mean something is not happening on the inside.”

”You may have seen His blessings in the past, but you haven’t touched the surface of what He has in store.”

”Instead of considering how big your obstacle is, why don’t you start considering how big your God is.”

“Do all you can to make your dreams come true.”

”Every blessing, every healing, every breakthrough was not just designed for you; it was designed to strengthen others.”

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Trivia

Osteen’s on our list of the top 20 richest pastors in the world.

Joel Osteen – Net Worth

So, how much is Joel Osteen worth? Osteen accrued most of his wealth from managing Lakewood Church. However, Joel has not received a salary from Lakewood Church since 2004. Therefore, pastor Joel Osteen has an estimated net worth of $100 million.

Note – Joel Osteen’s net worth rose over the years. For instance, in 2020, Joel Osteen had an estimated net worth of 50 million, while in 2022, it reached $60 million.

Instead, Osteen earns his money from selling copies of his books, which have been translated into 19 languages and have sold over 22 million copies.

Some of Osteen’s books are Empty Out the Negative, The Abundance Mind-Set: Success Starts Here, The Power of Favor, Blessed in the Darkness, Daily Readings from The Power of I Am, Two Words That Will Change Your Life Today, and Hope for Today Bible.

On Amazon, Osteen’s books have over 40k ratings, this means an estimated 4 million copies sold.

Joel also makes money from lucrative speaking engagements across the country. ”We’ve given millions of dollars,” Osteen said about his $10.5 million home. ”I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a nice place to live and being blessed.”

Wait, no salary?

Who pays the pastor? Answer depends of the year. In December 2006 Joel told CNN: “I don’t take a salary at the church, but, you know, god’s blessed me.”

Twenty years later, on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast in April 2026, he said it again: “I’ve been blessed with book sales and media and other things, so I don’t have to take a salary.” Not a bad gig for a preacher.

Same podcast, about the cars and planes that social media posts pin on him: “I have no yachts, I have no jets, I have no cars.”

Year	Payday or deal	Amount
2001	Compaq Center lease, paid up front	$11.8 million
2006	Free Press book contract	over $10 million possible
2007	Become a Better You first print run	3 million copies
2010	River Oaks mansion purchase	$10.5 million
2010	Arena bought from Houston	$7.5 million
2014	Cash and checks taken from safe	$600,000
2017	Lakewood yearly income	$89 million
2021	PPP funds paid back	$4.4 million
2023	Renovation loan cleared	$100 million

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