Every generation gets a child star who grows up to surprise everyone, and Neil Patrick Harris has now done it twice. He went from teenage TV doctor Doogie Howser to How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson, then kept stacking Broadway, magic, and hosting gigs onto the same résumé.

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Born: June 15, 1973 ·
Spouse: David Burtka (m. 2014) ·
Children: 2, via surrogacy ·
Net worth: $50 million (estimated) ·
Famous role: Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother)

Quick snapshot

1Confirmed facts
2What’s unclear
3Timeline signal
4What’s next

One glance at the core record shows how stable his public biography is — the only column that wobbles is the one with dollar signs.

Label Value
Full Name Neil Patrick Harris
Born June 15, 1973, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
Occupation Actor, magician, host, writer (Wikipedia, Spanish-language (open encyclopedia))
Family Spouse David Burtka (m. 2014); twins Gideon and Harper via surrogacy (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine))
Famous Role Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
Estimated Net Worth $50 million (2025 estimate) (Celebrity Net Worth (celebrity finance database))

What is Neil Patrick Harris’s most famous role?

Ask most people to name his signature role and you’ll get the same answer fast: Barney Stinson, the suit-obsessed, catchphrase-dispensing womanizer of How I Met Your Mother. It’s the role that turned a former child star into a prime-time institution.

How did Neil Patrick Harris become famous?

  • He was born June 15, 1973, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to two lawyer parents (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)).
  • He gained major fame as the title character in Doogie Howser, M.D., which ran from 1989 to 1993 and earned a Golden Globe nomination in 1992 (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)).
  • The role made him a fixture of 2000s TV; Forbes later reported his final-season pay at $400,000 per episode (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).

The Doogie years made him a household name by 16; the HIMYM years made him a meme-generating machine two decades later. In between, he quietly built the kind of stage résumé that most TV stars never attempt.

What other roles is he known for?

  • Broadway: he made his debut in Proof in 2001 (IMDb (film and TV database)).
  • Broadway: he headlined Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).
  • Netflix: he starred in A Series of Unfortunate Events, beginning in 2017 (IMDb (film and TV database)).

The pattern: Harris keeps picking roles that let him be the smartest person in the room — a boy doctor, a human peacock, a Victorian villain — and the streak never really stopped.

Snapshot: Harris turned child stardom into adult reinvention by choosing roles that showcase intelligence and charisma, from Doogie Howser to Barney Stinson.

Does Neil Patrick Harris have biological kids?

Short answer: no. The two children he and husband David Burtka are raising were born via surrogacy, which is the precise way to answer the question.

Who are Neil Patrick Harris’s children?

  • Twins Gideon and Harper, born in 2010 (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).
  • Harris and Burtka married in 2014, four years after the twins arrived (IMDb (film and TV database)).

How were his children born?

Why this matters

Surrogacy is the documented path: Forbes’s profile lists Harris as a father of two, and the 2010 birth year is consistent across sources.

So “biological kids” and “being a parent” have different answers. The first is no; the second is plainly yes.

What this means: when people search “Neil Patrick Harris kids,” they’re usually asking whether he and Burtka have children. The answer is yes — twins, born in 2010, via surrogacy.

What year did Neil Patrick come out?

2006. Harris was 33, and he did it with a public statement in People magazine (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)).

When did Neil Patrick Harris reveal his sexuality?

  • The announcement came in 2006, while How I Met Your Mother was still establishing itself on CBS.

He was already a recognizable TV face again, which made the statement a career moment as much as a personal one.

How did he come out?

  • Through a written People magazine statement, giving him control over the framing (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)).

The timing mattered: he came out not as a struggling actor protecting a career, but as the star of a hit sitcom. That’s a different kind of public moment, and it’s why 2006 still appears in every serious profile of his life.

Key takeaway: Harris’s 2006 coming-out statement redefined how a TV star could manage a personal milestone while at the peak of network success.

How wealthy is Neil Patrick Harris?

This is where the record gets fuzzier. Estimates of Harris’s net worth cluster around $50 million, but they have ranged from $40 million to $50 million depending on the year and the source.

What is Neil Patrick Harris’s net worth?

How did he earn his wealth?

  • Forbes reported $400,000-per-episode pay for the final season of How I Met Your Mother, $18 million earned in 2014, and a Broadway run in Hedwig and the Angry Inch during that period (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).

The trade-off: the net-worth range is real but imprecise. The honest summary is that Harris has been a top-tier TV earner for decades, with the exact number depending on which publication is counting.

Financial verdict: Harris’s wealth comes from long-running TV paydays and Broadway runs, but reported net worth varies by $10 million across sources — a gap worth noting.

What is Neil Patrick Harris doing nowadays?

He’s still working — just not at the pace of a weekly network series. The last decade has been a mix of television, stage, and publishing.

What are Neil Patrick Harris’s recent projects?

  • Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, in which he played Count Olaf, beginning in 2017 (IMDb (film and TV database)).
  • Choose Your Own Autobiography, his published memoir, tied to the book deal Forbes counted among his income streams (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).
  • Spanish-language Wikipedia also describes him as a magician and comedian, a label that fits his side projects (Wikipedia, Spanish-language (open encyclopedia)).

What is he working on now?

The upshot

No formal announcement has appeared for a new starring role as of the 2025 profiles tracked for this article. Harris’s pattern is to confirm quietly, then show up somewhere unexpected — a Netflix series, a Broadway stage, a hosting desk.

A 2025 Parade profile and a 2025 Marca profile both still treat him as an active celebrity whose career is worth tracking (Parade (lifestyle magazine); Marca (lifestyle news site)).

The smart bet: watch streaming announcements and Broadway listings rather than waiting for a single franchise sequel. That’s where his recent work keeps landing.

What it means for fans: Harris remains an active but unpredictable performer — expect him to appear in premium streaming series or stage productions, not another decade-long network sitcom.

Neil Patrick Harris: key milestones

Seven milestones, one arc: child stardom, an adult reinvention, and a family life that happened on his own schedule.

Year Milestone
1973 Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
1989 Doogie Howser, M.D. premieres (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
2005 How I Met Your Mother premieres (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
2006 Comes out publicly in People magazine (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
2010 Twins Gideon and Harper born via surrogacy (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine))
2014 Marries David Burtka; How I Met Your Mother ends (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine); IMDb (film and TV database))
2017 A Series of Unfortunate Events debuts on Netflix (IMDb (film and TV database))

The pattern: Harris built a career that spans four decades without a scandal arc, and his family timeline — children first, wedding later — never looked like a publicity stunt.

What’s confirmed vs. what’s unclear

Some parts of Harris’s story are rock solid; others are estimates dressed up as facts.

    Confirmed facts:

  • Born June 15, 1973, in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
  • Starred in Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–1993) (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
  • Starred in How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014) (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia))
  • Married to David Burtka; two children via surrogacy (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine))
    Still unclear:

  • Exact current net worth — estimates range from $40M in 2019 to $50M in 2025 (Business Insider (business news publication); Parade (lifestyle magazine); Marca (lifestyle news site))
  • Specific upcoming roles — none formally announced in the latest 2025 profiles (Marca (lifestyle news site))
  • Childhood detail that he grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico — listed by IMDb but not by Britannica (IMDb (film and TV database))
  • The methodology behind the $50M figure — Celebrity Net Worth and Parade do not disclose identical math (Celebrity Net Worth (celebrity finance database); Parade (lifestyle magazine))
Reader alert

When a financial figure comes from a single website, treat it as a data point, not a fact.

What the sources say

“American comic actor” — the descriptor Encyclopaedia Britannica uses for Neil Patrick Harris.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)

Forbes: Harris earned $400,000 per episode in the final season of How I Met Your Mother and $18 million in 2014 — a stretch that also featured his Broadway run in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)

Two sources, two lenses: one describes what he is, the other shows what he earns. Both matter — and neither is a rumor.

Harris has spent four decades proving that a former child star can build a grown-up career without a scandal arc, and his family story — a marriage to David Burtka and two kids via surrogacy — is as much a part of that comeback as any role. For fans deciding what to believe about his money, the choice is clear: trust the range and the reported salaries, not any single headline estimate, or you’ll end up repeating a magazine guess as if it were a bank statement.

Related reading: Jun Ji-hyun – Age, Family, Career and 2025 Updates

Additional sources

en.mediamass.net, networthranker.net, thecityceleb.com, sociallifemagazine.com

Mis deze niet

Frequently asked questions

Is Neil Patrick Harris married?

Yes — to David Burtka. The couple married in 2014 (IMDb (film and TV database)).

Is Neil Patrick Harris a father?

Yes — twins Gideon and Harper, born via surrogacy in 2010 (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).

How old was Neil Patrick Harris when he came out?

33. He was born in 1973 and came out in 2006 (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia)).

What is Neil Patrick Harris’s net worth?

Estimates vary: Celebrity Net Worth and Parade say $50 million, while Business Insider reported $40 million in 2019 (Celebrity Net Worth (celebrity finance database); Parade (lifestyle magazine); Business Insider (business news publication)).

What is Neil Patrick Harris’s book about?

He published a memoir titled Choose Your Own Autobiography, a project tied to the book deal Forbes noted in his earnings profile (Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine)).

What is Neil Patrick Harris known for?

Doogie Howser, M.D., How I Met Your Mother, Broadway productions like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (Encyclopaedia Britannica (reference encyclopedia); Forbes (business and celebrity finance magazine); IMDb (film and TV database)).