Sun, sea and sacks of cash: Professor Boris Johnson’s £8m afterlife

In early March, an excited Boris Johnson popped up on GB News. This was news in itself, since Johnson has barely surfaced on the right wing channel since announcing in October 2023 that he was joining it as a presenter, programme maker and commentator, with “a key role” in election coverage and plans to host a series “showcasing the power of Britain around the world”.

On March 3, speaking from the US, Johnson offered none of that. It turned out that he had merely sent them a video of himself talking about Shakespeare Week, which gives primary-school children a chance to learn about the Bard.

Wearing an ill-fitting suit, with hair tousled in his familiar style and looking tremendously pleased with himself, Johnson said, “Hi, folks! I’m here teaching at the University of Miami. Yesterday, I met a student and, unbelievably, she was called Sonnet!

“OK, she’s from California, and they’re all called something like Sonnet or Cupboard or Bucket or whatever,” he continued, before describing how he regaled her with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Sonnet Jacobs, a bright-eyed, blonde pre-law student, could not be reached for comment on how this moment went down, though the version Johnson performed on GB News made you want to cringe. So did Johnson’s advice to viewers: “If you ever want to impress a member of the opposite sex, you have to keep a sonnet under your bonnet.”

On LinkedIn, Jacobs says only that the pair engaged in “a thoughtful conversation on global politics, leadership, and today’s international challenges. Learning directly from a former prime minister was both inspiring and eye-opening.”

The inspiring, eye-opening opportunity for Jacobs and her fellow classmates opened up because Johnson is currently a visiting lecturer and co-teacher of a class on political science at the University of Miami, a private college in Coral Gables, Florida that is best known for its successful US football team, the Hurricanes. The tenure is part of Johnson’s strange and highly lucrative second act since being kicked ignominiously out of Downing Street over partygate lies in 2022, seemingly ending a political career that began in earnest in 2001, when he won Michael Heseltine’s old Henley seat.

After a failed attempt to return to power when Liz Truss imploded was followed by a 2023 Westminster ban, Johnson got the message. He now appears to have dedicated himself to making as much money as possible for himself, his wife, Carrie Symons, their young family (Wilfred, Romy, Frank, and Poppy) and his five known other children.

He has trousered a staggering amount so far – possibly as much as £8m – and Miami is yet another stop on the gravy train. Johnson is there thanks to the largesse of billionaire Ken Griffin, a Floridian who supports right wing causes. Given that after one session on campus, he and his family were able to fly to the Cayman Islands for a short VIP break, he does not appear to be being underpaid.

Apart from money, the lure of Miami is obvious. The city is hot in all kinds of ways, expensive but often breathtaking. The University of Miami’s campus is a microcosm of this.

Overabundant foliage infuses UM’s 200-plus-acre site with a tropical stillness, transforming a typical college quad into an urban oasis. Amid the green canopy taming the scorching sunlight, students weave through the campus, a steady rhythm picking up around busy nodes where kiosks dot the paths and keep the university’s population running on coffee, empanadas, juices, and other grab-and-go refreshments. It feels like a small city with its own pulse.

But Johnson’s arrival was not entirely welcomed there. When they first heard that he was going to be teaching, one student told The New World, “I was hoping it was just a prank, but unfortunately it wasn’t. As somebody who is not white, I felt uncomfortable knowing that someone whose politics revolve around scapegoating minorities, dishonesty, and opportunism was invited and honoured at the university I attend.”

Another student posted on Reddit: “Didn’t know we had a class in being so bad at your job your colleagues turn on you and make you resign.” And under the college’s Instagram post announcing the decision, the top comment simply says “Another win for Florida State University” – the University of Miami’s bitter rival on the American football field since 1951.

Since the University of Miami is a private, rather than public, institution, the student – who spoke on condition of anonymity – said any protest on campus had to be pre-approved by administrators, noting that a professor there was made to apologise in 2024 for wearing a Palestinian sash. Given that, “it’s hard not to see (Johnson’s appointment) as intentionally provocative,” they said.

Johnson was hired courtesy of a gift from Griffin, who has become Miami’s civic rainmaker since relocating his hedge fund, Citadel, to the city from Chicago in 2022. Their alliance is somewhat surprising – back when Johnson was PM, Griffin lost out on a bid to buy Chelsea FC after Johnson’s government gave its approval to Saudi Media instead.

Clearly, Griffin has forgiven Johnson for this, but further details about how the ex-PM landed this gig remain murky. Joel Samuels, UM’s academic affairs executive vice-president, told The New World he was not available for interview, as did Casey Klofstad, a professor who is teaching alongside the disgraced former PM. Klofstad’s colleague Joseph Uscinski did not respond to requests for comment.

UM is not a particularly conservative college by American standards; another student described it to The New World as “more indifferent than ideological”. It’s better known for football than politics – its Hurricanes lost the national championship game in January to the much bigger University of Indiana in a clash watched by over 30 million people.

UM boasts Sylvester Stallone and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as alumni (students delight in the fact that Steve-O from Jackass also studied there, but failed to graduate).

Perhaps Johnson’s gig at UM is a hint that – ironically, given the fatal unseriousness of his premiership – the university would like a more serious political reputation.

There is an irony, too, that UM is ranked as one of the country’s top party schools, and Miami itself is a famous party town. It was parties that brought Johnson’s prime ministerial career to an ignominious end in September 2022 after three years and 44 days, following an investigation which found that he had broken his own lockdown regulations by allowing parties in Downing Street during the height of the pandemic.

Though there is not much evidence of Johnson learning lessons, he has avoided the city’s swanky nightlife so far. He hasn’t been seen dancing late at night at fashion-industry hangout Mynt in Miami Beach – maybe because of its strict dress code. He has missed big local events like Swedish House Mafia’s headline set at the Miami Ultra Festival last month, and DJ Khaled’s much-discussed appearance at the exclusive LIV club at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

He has also not been spotted – thus far, at least – at Donald Trump’s nearby Mar-a-Lago resort, perhaps due to having suggested it as a place to house refugees from Gaza last February. That might be down to Griffin: once a Trump supporter and still a prolific donor to Republican candidates, he has loudly broken with the president in recent months, accusing the administration of “enriching” the president’s families.

Maybe Johnson just doesn’t have time to party because he’s busy with his own enrichment. Since leaving office on September 6, 2022, he’s been on a manic tear of appointments and engagements, swelling his bank account by what is said to be between £6.5m and £8m.

Suggested Reading

Keir Starmer’s fate – to become Boris Johnson

James Ball

He has spoken in Dubai, Riyadh, Taipei, Owerri in Nigeria and Lynchburg, Virginia – with themes around “western values” and free speech, no doubt tousling his hair artfully before bounding to the lectern. He was paid $250,000 to speak at a private equity firm in California, and $405,000 for a turn at Centerview Partners, a US bank. Remarkably in London he seems to command a much lower fee – a speech in 2022 netted him a measly £60,000. He has squeezed in working trips to Texas and Japan as well as holidays in the Caymans and Greece, and a “reporting” trip to Ukraine, filming for an upcoming Channel 5 show called Boris Johnson: In The Kill Zone.

He has lectured in Lagos and Delhi, addressed a blockchain conference in Singapore, and talked green energy in Abu Dhabi. He has addressed students at Yale, Georgetown, the University of Wisconsin, and the conservative Liberty University in Virginia.

These appearances are jaw-droppingly lucrative: his speaking fee, the Guardian reported in 2025, is just over a quarter of a million pounds per appearance.

In March, he was paid to make a first venture into podcasts, appearing on The Smokeless Word – a branded show funded by British American Tobacco – where he referred to himself as “the Napoleon of Notting Hill”.

That’s on top of his million-pound-per-year weekly column in the Mail (an appointment that both broke the ministerial code and also, as this magazine reported, gave executives immediate buyers’ remorse after a bizarre launch feature about Ozempic). And the reported £2m advance on his 784-page autobiography Unleashed.

This sold a disappointing 42,528 copies in its launch week and then tumbled still further – possibly because, as he later admitted, he uses ChatGPT to write; telling Al Arabiya in a truly bizarre interview that “I love AI… ChatGPT always says ‘oh, your questions are clever. You’re brilliant. You’re excellent, you have such insight.’ I love it.” Aided by his artificial toady, he is still working on his book about Shakespeare (for which he received an advance of £88,000 in 2015). Perhaps Sonnet Jacobs will be among the buyers.

These are just the gigs we know about, and they haven’t stopped him from leaning on taxpayer-funded subsidies: he continues to claim £182,000 for private office staff salaries on top of his governmental pension, leading to accusations that he is misusing a scheme designed to help former PMs contribute to public life.

After a spell at home in Brightwell Manor, his nine-bedroom Oxfordshire mansion (bought for £3.8m in 2023), Johnson is due back in Miami soon, and some of his class can hardly wait. UM student Marizú Weller Rios, a political science major from Guatemala, heard about his classes before the semester began.

“I studied abroad in London last summer,” Rios said. “So when I heard that Boris Johnson was teaching, I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about British politics from someone who actually shaped it. It was a very high-demand class, but I got a seat.

“You can learn about the political and economic context from any lecture,” she said, “but it’s not every day you get to ask a world leader what he was thinking during a moment that changed history.”

Asked what Johnson’s classroom sessions were like, she said: “It’s not a boring lecture. He’s very genuine, and he brings humour and openness. You feel like you’re talking to someone who doesn’t hide behind a script.” No one, she said, had been brave enough to ask about the scandals that led to his resignation as prime minister: “That’s not something that was on anybody’s mind.”

Johnson’s lectures are complemented by office hours, a rarity for visiting celebrities. He meets with small groups of about 10 students inside the College of Arts and Sciences every few weeks for what Rios called “a more intimate setting”.

“It’s basically an ask-me-anything session,” she said. “Students asked him for career advice, about working in international relations, or how to approach leadership roles like mayor or prime minister. It felt personal.”

Gregory Koger, director of the Hanley Democracy Center and a professor of political science, helped host one of Johnson’s on-campus appearances and was equally enthusiastic. Koger told The New World that Johnson – whose administration was described by researchers at Sussex University as the most corrupt since the second world war – “fit naturally” within the centre’s mission of fostering civic dialogue.

“He’s a former prime minister of one of our major allies, and that makes him naturally of interest to students,” Koger said, calling Johnson “consistent across events … gregarious and outspoken, saying whatever he thought, not in a way that felt poll-tested.”