“Big” Ed Brown is perhaps the most famous face to come out of the reality TV juggernaut that is 90 Day Fiancé. While only standing at 4-feet and 11 inches, the Arkansas native certainly made a big impact when he debuted on a 90 Day spin-off that quickly went viral.
Throughout his various appearances in the 90 Day universe, Ed has consistently dated and pursued women several decades younger than him, all while stressing he didn’t want to be seen as a “meal ticket” by these women. The unlucky-in-love Ed seems to lead a comfortable lifestyle as a man who lived as a bachelor for almost thirty years, viewers will be curious about the off-screen career that led to this lifetyle.
Big Ed’s 90 Day Fiancé journey
Ed first appeared on the spin-off 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days, where he met with Rosemarie Vega, a young Filipina woman under half of Ed’s age at the time. The meeting in Manila prompted a series of Ed-based disasters, including the revelation that Ed lied about his height (and that Rose was noticeably taller than him), and that he had also lied about wanting to have more children, as well as arguments started by his assertion that Rose smelled bad and should take an STD test – and to top it all off, he washed his hair with mayonnaise.
Big Ed’s first season on the show went viral for all the wrong reasons – with articles and video compilations detailing Ed’s most selfish, dim-witted, and just downright odd moments generating millions of clicks and views. PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s most-subscribed content creators, made a series of videos about Ed, helping solidify Big Ed as the show’s most recognizable figure.
Unsurprisingly, Rose and Ed didn’t stick it out, and Ed returned – to the delight of many viewers – on the spin-off, 90 Day Fiancé: The Single Life, where he met Liz Woods, who worked at a restaurant he frequented. Over the course of their season, and the subsequent follow-up on season seven of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?, the couple broke up and reconciled more times than viewers could count.
Ed and Liz appeared on The Last Resort, another spin-off where the two went to a resort to undergo a course of couples’ therapies. At the re-commitment ceremony in the season finale, the duo both proposed to one another, ready to start a new chapter. On a subsequent spin-off, 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?, the looming nuptials proved too much to handle, and a recent episode showed the wedding being called off over a fight about Ed refusing to make his taco pasta less spicy, of all things.
What is Big Ed’s job?
Ed’s introductory episode on Before The 90 Days, Ed introduced himself as a professional photographer. On screen, Ed has described himself as a fashion photographer, shooting models and creating magazine covers for various publications. If you’re curious to see what his photography style looks like, you can view a portfolio on Model Mayhem with a selection of photographs – which seem to be mostly sensual photographs of younger women.
Ed’s photography business, EA Brown Studio, is said to specialize in “weddings, fashion, studio shoots, and advertising”. Around the time of his 90 Day debut, Brown was said to have a side hustle as an interior designer at Studio Europa LEICHT, a company that specializes in kitchen design, in San Diego, California. In more recent episodes, as shown on Happily Ever After, Ed – with Liz in tow – has relocated to his home state of Arkansas, where he has started working in real estate.
Alongside other American 90 Day cast members, Ed will be paid for his time on the show, estimated to be around $1000-$1500 an episode. Across five different spin-offs, Ed will easily have made $50,000 from filming the series alone. As Liz is also an American citizen, the couple will be pulling in a double income for every season they shoot.
With reality TV stardom comes some seriously lucrative money-making opportunities – and Big Ed has certainly taken advantage. Brown has a Cameo account, where he charges $68 per video message and, as of May 2024, has 3,780 reviews to his name, meaning he has pulled in around $250,000 from the fan-based app alone. Ed has also done a lot of spon-con (sponsored content) on his Instagram, promoting various brands, and he has a TikTok account, where fans can send cash “gifts” to their favorite creators, and videos can earn monetization.