Bobby Bones Biography: Radio Show, Net Worth, American Idol, Instagram, Wife, Age & More
Bobby Bones, originally born Bobby Estell on April 2, 1980, is one of the great American on-air radio personalities that is better known for being the host of the nationwide show, The Bobby Bones Show.’ The show was originally started in Nashville, TN at WSIX-FM. On top of hosting his own show, he is also one of the full-time mentors on the hit reality television show, American Idol that airs on ABC. Bobby was also the season 27 winner of the popular television show, Dancing With The Stars with his dancing partner and instructor, Sharma Burgess. On top of all this, he has found the time to write two best sellers on the New York Times list, and was even a judge of the original series by Topgolf, Who Will Rock You.
Bobby Bones: The Early Life
Originally being born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Bobby Bones would grow up in the town of Mountain Pine, also in Arkansas. Apparently, his mother had gotten pregnant at just the age of 15 years old, to his father who was only 17 years old at the time. He would eventually be raised by both his mother and his grandmother in the small Mountain Pine community.
While his biological father would be around him until he turned 5, he would eventually end up disappearing and not being involved with his life. This is about the time that Bones would start to have dreams of having a world-famous radio career. This may have been due to the fact that his family grew up very poor, living in a trailer park, often times having the radio be his only way to escape the reality of being poor.
Not letting his dreams escape him, he would get a chance to start his radio career several years later at the age of just 17, working at the Henderson State University campus radio station, KSWH-FM 102.5. He would end up graduating with his B.A. degree from Henderson in the year 2002, having majored in Radio/Television.
Bobby Bones’ Career
While he was still attending college, Bobby would get a job as a station hand at a radio station in nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas. Luckily for Bones, however, he would only have to wait a couple of days before he would be put on the air for the first time. It was at this time that he also got his name. You see, one of the managers gave him a choice of either going on air with the name Bobby Z, or the name Bobby Bones. He would obviously choose Bobby Bones. This would eventually lead to his first real full-time radio contract, which would only pay him $17,000. Then in 2002, he would end up being hired by Q100/KQAR, which is based out of Little Rock Arkansas. He would later end up at KLAL, which would eventually land him his own show, The Bobby Bones Show, which was on KHFI-FM out of Austin, Texas.
Originally being hired to work on the evening shift of KHFI-FM, Bones would switch over to the morning soon after. While he was in Austin, Bones would go on to meet two future co-hosts, Amy and Lunchbox. He would end up hiring Sarah first who was very familiar with the radio industry but would let her go for Amy, as he simply thought that she was a much better fit. In fact, Bones thought that Amy was such a good fit that once he hired her, he would immediately put her on the air. And oddly enough, his executive producer at the time, Alayna, started on the show as an intern.
Over the span of the next ten years, Bones’ show would slowly build up an audience and eventually become one of the top-rated shows in the morning in all of Austin. It would become so popular that it would even be syndicated in several regional markets. During the height of Bones’ popularity, he was offered a different job that was outside of radio, but he would stay true to his dreams from when he was a little boy and choose to stay with Clear Channel.
During the fall of 2012, Bones and his show would be moved from Austin, out to Nashville, which would lead to The Bobby Bones Show going nationwide. You can now tune into Bones’ show which is on weekday mornings, Monday through Friday from 5am to 10am central time. His two co-hosts are Amy and Lunchbox, while his program director is Michael Bryan.
Bobby Bones Net Worth
With a popular morning radio show that is played nationwide, you may be wondering to yourself, ‘how much is Bobby Bones actually worth?’
Bobby Bones has been able to use radio to amass himself a net worth of $7 million dollars. He has been able to do this by using his show to become the #1 country music DJ in the entire country. But he has not stopped at simply having his own show. In fact, Bobby Bones is also a co-host with the tennis star Andy Roddick, on Fox Sports Radio.
When Bobby is not on the radio, he tends to do guest spots on shows like ‘Live! With Kelly Ripa’, serves as one of the correspondents on CNN, appear on ‘Headline News’, and has even been in several different movies, the most popular one being titled ‘Bandslam’.
With all of the different projects that Bobby Bones has going on, it is no wonder that he can demand a salary that is upwards of $1 million dollars per year. Not too bad for a boy that grew up in a trailer park in a small community of Arkansas. While not all of his fans may necessarily know his complete story, Bobby has still been able to amass a huge following on social media. From his own show and co-hosting on other radio shows, he has one of the larger followings on both Facebook and Twitter, which he uses to help promote his shows on.
