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Joy Reid appears to have found a silver lining after her firing from MSNBC earlier this year.
The controversial commentator has built a following of over 168,000 supporters on her Substack platform, which she began focusing on more seriously after being dismissed from the network in February.
On Monday, the former Reid Out host announced that she was a ‘Substack Bestseller with thousands of paid subscribers.’
It’s not known exactly how many of those 168,000 followers are paying the $8 monthly subscription fee, but even a modest portion of subscribers could allow Reid to earn upwards of six figures each month.
‘At the beginning of the year, I had just around nine thousand subscribers. Most of these followers were here (when it was known as “And another thing with Joy”) to read my infrequent posts and to engage with me during live chats while I was on the set at 30 Rock for MSNBC special broadcasts,’ Reid shared on Monday.
‘That modest growth ended abruptly in January, when my then boss, the MSNBC president, told me I wasn’t allowed to have a Substack.
‘I didn’t delete it, though. I just stopped posting. So on my “liberation day,” I started writing here again.
‘Fast forward six months, and those nine thousand readers now exceed one hundred sixty eight thousand.’

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid has amassed more than 168,000 followers on her Substack account, which she began writing for in earnest after her February ouster from the network

Reid celebrated the achievement in her Welcome to Joy’s House! newsletter, which has become a ‘Substack Bestseller’
Other paid plans for her Substack musings include an annual subscription for $80 and a yearly ‘Founding Member’ subscription for $240.
Substack takes a 10 percent commission from each of its authors – as well as a four percent surcharge per payment – leaving Reid with plenty left over to pay the bills.
Even if just 5,000 of her subscribers opted for the yearly plan, she would still be raking in a cool $360,000 a year.
That doesn’t account for any revenue earned from her YouTube series, The Joy Reid Show, which launched on June 9 and counts more than 243,000 subscribers.
YouTubers with 100,000 subscribers can make anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per month, according to Podcastle.
Reid, 56, joins a long list of journalists, including Jim Acosta and Terry Moran, to go independent after bitter breakups with their mainstream outlets.
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, for example, has amassed just over 300,000 subscribers on Substack after his resignation from the network in early January.
Reid, who rankled MSNBC brass with her extreme online rants, was fired in late February by the network’s new boss.

While it’s unclear how many of her 168,000-plus followers shell out the $8 monthly subscription fee, even a small percentage of paying customers would potentially net Reid six figures per month

Reid, who rankled MSNBC brass with her extreme online rants, was fired in late February by the network’s new boss
An insider at MSNBC told Politico that her controversial social media posts – including shamed Latino Republican’s for voting for Trump and claiming the media’s preoccupation with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was motivated by the victims being ‘white and largely Christian’ – ‘gave the Standards Department heartburn.’
In January, Reid compared President Donald Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Network bosses began plotting to get rid of Reid in late 2023 and ultimately offered her a one-year contract extension, while also cutting her pay in the hopes she’d take the hint and quit.
When Reid was finally let go, her ratings were down from a high of 3 million viewers per episode in her first year on the air in 2020 to a low of 1.1 million.
Daily Mail has reached out to Reid’s people for comment.