Clinton Speaking Fees: Chelsea Paid $65K To Talk For 30 Minutes

If Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speaking fee of $275,000 was just a little too pricey for some, there’s another Clinton available to headline major events, and for considerably less dough, too. Her daughter Chelsea commanded $65,000 in February for a quick show — a 10-minute speech, 20-minute moderated Q&A session, and 30-minute photo op — at the University of Missouri at Kansas City’s gala luncheon.

Yet that appearance fee was still noticeably higher than those of other feminist and female leaders such as Gloria Steinem, who charges $30,000, or Tina Brown, who fetches $50,000, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, after combing through more than 500 pages of internal communications and other documents from the university.

If nothing else, the university’s willingness to cover the cost of selecting Chelsea Clinton over celebrated feminists is a testament to how Clinton is becoming a celebrity in her own right, even if that prominence stems from her parents’ powerful positions in politics and the family’s influential global charity, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

For the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Chelsea Clinton drew an audience of 1,100, who paid $35 each per ticket, for a total of $38,500, the Post reported. An alumni relations official, Amy Loughman, wrote in an email after the event, “Chelsea was the perfect fit.” Her speaking fees reportedly went to the Clinton Foundation and not to Chelsea Clinton personally, a spokesman for the daughter told the Washington Post.

Chelsea Clinton has given nine speeches, and fees from all of them went to the foundation, the Wall Street Journal reported in May. Since 2002, nearly 100 talks given by all three family members have raked in up to $26 million for the philanthropy.

In June 2014, Politico reported that Chelsea Clinton earned $600,000 per year as a special correspondent at NBC News, a position she started in November 2011 with no experience in journalism. Earlier in 2014, her contract was altered so that she was paid on a month-to-month basis, though the details of that deal have not been disclosed.