Melissa McCarthy makes $12 million a year, wakes up at 4:30 a.m., and doesn't use her phone on the weekends
- Melissa McCarthy, who earned $12 million in 2018, is one of Hollywood's highest-paid women.
- According to a New York Times profile, she wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to begin her daily routine, puts her phone away on the weekends, and hates that the world is set up to make people efficient.
- McCarthy isn't the only rich person to wake up early - Richard Branson and Mark Wahlberg take an early start to their day, too.
Melissa McCarthy is one of the highest-paid women in Hollywood. She went from having major credit card debt as a 20-year-old just starting her comedy career in New York to earning $12 million in 2018 at age 47. Today, she's worth $60 million, according to Forbes.
But you wouldn't know she's a top-earning celebrity by her daily routine, in which she practically eschews everything related to "being busy" - the hallmark of Hollywood's elite - in favor of a more "carefully curated day," as revealed in a New York Times profile by Taffy Brodesser-Akner.
McCarthy rises at 4:30 a.m. in her Los Angeles or Atlanta home, according to The Times. She tiptoes around the house to avoid waking up her family, makes coffee, and spends her morning watching TV - typically "Knight Rider" or "The Incredible Hulk."
McCarthy is hardly the only household name who's gone on record as waking up before the sun. Richard Branson wakes up at 5 a.m. to plan out his day, eat breakfast, and spend time with his family. Mark Wahlberg wakes up at 2:30 a.m. for a morning that involves prayer time, two meals, a workout, a shower, and golf, all before 8 a.m.
However, McCarthy isn't trying to maximize her time.
"She hates how the entire world is set up to make people more efficient. She hates the trend that every home needs an open-concept design of one room leading to another," writes Brodesser-Akner in The Times. "She sees what it's really about, which is not you spending time with your kids while you cook and they watch TV but you being able to be everywhere at once."
"We are literally knocking down walls to help ourselves multitask," McCarthy told The Times. "Maybe I'll start a business called 'Walls,' and my specialty will be putting walls in, because in 10 years we're all going to want them again because we've made our houses into studio apartments."
McCarthy also resists having her phone out at all times.
Brodesser-Akner describes McCarthy's approach to technology:
"She sees why phones are necessary, she accepts their existence, but she thinks the world got much worse and more apathetic and less willing to say "Yes and" and "Why not?" the minute everyone had a smartphone. She'll post on Instagram but she won't read Instagram. She won't even do email. People can text her or they can call her. Email will drown her."
As part of her morning, she reads The Los Angeles Times and National Geographic the old-fashioned way - in print. She makes an exception for The New York Times, which she reads on her iPad. The iPad also makes an appearance at night, which she uses to peruse Pinterest and Etsy while taking a bath.
Weekends are for friends and family and involve even more technological disconnect - McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone put their phones aside and have friends over for dinner on Sundays.