Woman makes up to $167 an hour nannying for the ultra-rich: report

A woman who nannies for real-life billionaires said she enjoys private jets and fully-funded trips to luxury destinations around the world while making up to $167 an hour, according to a report.

Gloria Richards, 34, said she spends just half of her year taking care of the children of her ultra-wealthy clients.

The remainder of her time is devoted to acting in off-Broadway and one-woman shows in New York City and Virginia — but her nannying gig covers 80 to 90% of her annual income, according to a CNBC report.

“I could nanny for, like, two months at the top of the year, and I’d be fine for the rest of the year,” Richards, told CNBC Make It. “What feeds me is being able to work so closely with these kids.”

She is typically paid up to $2,000 a day for 12 to 15 hours of work — which includes managing kids’ social calendars, keeping up with their educational needs, and oftentimes filling in as a mother figure.

Richards is represented by NY-based household staffing firm Madison Agency and works for about 10 families at a time, according to the news outlet.

The gig is not without stress, however.

She often is hired to care for neurodivergent children of busy billionaires and celebrities, who are sometimes uninvolved in their kids’ lives.

“I’ve had full-blown interviews where [parents] are like, ‘We’re looking for someone to raise our kids,’” she said to CNBC. “They tell me they had kids to pass on their trust funds, [and that] ‘I’ll hang out with them after boarding school when they can drink.’”

In some cases, Richards never meets the famous clients who hire her and is sent on trips with the kids alone.

On her very first day working as a nanny for the mega-rich, she showed up at an airport and headed right onto a private jet with the children she had just met as they flew to a rented-out resort in Barbados, according to the outlet.

Working for the extremely wealthy, Richards told the publication her clients’ impulse buys include homes purchased on layovers and $3,200 steaks they’ll take one bite of.

Madison Agency’s director of operations Jackie Mann told CNBC that not everyone can deal with the rich and their antics, but that Richards has the type of “extraordinary personality” and patience that’s often necessary for the gig.

Richards said she’s dealt with clients who withhold her pay as a sinister way to communicate that they’re unhappy with something she did.

She has asked the agency to help her deal with difficult situations.

She also said she has to strike the careful balance of having empathy for her clients and remembering it’s a job at the end of the day.

“I’ve had families go through an immense amount of grief in the public eye. I’m watching their divorces or deaths within the family,” Richards told the publication. “Sometimes I’m literally a shoulder to cry on. A second later, they’ll turn on me.”

Being a black woman working for many white families also presents challenges, she added.

“I’m a Black woman, and there are many times that I’m working for white families, and by the time the kids are six or seven, they have very specific thoughts about people who look like me,” she said.

After more than a decade working as a nanny, she has learned to set boundaries and remember to care for her own mental well-being.

“I have to be very mindful that even though it’s an intimate setting, it’s still a job,” Richards said.