Melody Holt (now Melody Shari) is an entrepreneur and television personality best known for starring alongside her ex-husband Martell in OWN’s Love & Marriage: Huntsville. She is the co-founder and CEO of property preservation firm Holt & Holt Entrepreneurship, and the founder of skincare brand Seventh Avenue Beauty. At present, Melody Holt has a net worth of $2.2 million.
Life Before Reality TV
Hailing from Brundidge, Alabama, Melody was born on November 11, 1985. Her mother, Vanessa Rodgers Tracy was a writer, and growing up she was Melody’s role model.
After finishing high school, the young lady attended Alabama A&M University. Inspired by her mother’s work, she planned to get a degree in English Language Arts.
After college, she wanted to become a teacher and got a job at a local middle school. She spent some time there before diving into the world of entrepreneurship.
Real Estate Career
Melody met and fell in love with Martell Holt while working as an English teacher at a middle school. Martell also worked at the same school as a teacher. When they began dating, they quit teaching not long afterward.
The pair started a lawn care business and initially had no idea what they were doing, but learned as they progressed. The two called their small business Holt & Holt Entrepreneurship LLC.
Holt & Holt grew into one of the top-rated rehabilitation, home expansion, and restoration companies in their area. They expanded their little operation into a multi-million dollar enterprise in just seven years.
Media Career
The Holts’ real estate success made them a natural fit for reality TV. Martell and Melody were cast in Love & Marriage: Huntsville on the Oprah Winfrey Network, joined by five other African-American real estate entrepreneurs.
The show became a hit, catapulting Melody and Martell into the limelight as reality television stars. Beyond appearing on screen, Melody also served as an executive producer on the series and hosted the OWN spinoff Behind Every Man.
However, after season 8 she announced her departure from Love & Marriage: Huntsville, with her final appearances airing in the Season 8 reunion. The show returned in March 2026 for a new season without her.
Melody’s Multiple Income Streams
While on Love & Marriage: Huntsville, Melody reportedly earned $56,000 per season – long her most visible source of income, alongside her share of Holt & Holt Entrepreneurship (which she has never publicly disclosed earnings from).
Outside of TV, her income engine is unusually diversified for a reality star:
- Seventh Avenue Beauty – her skincare and beauty line launched in February 2022 (originally Seventh Avenue Premier Skincare), developed in partnership with renowned cosmetic chemist Obia Ewah. The range now spans cleansers, moisturisers, lip oils, body care, and athleisure.
- MBrace Beauty – her cosmetics line.
- Holt Preservation Academy – training arm tied to her property preservation expertise.
Masterclass with Melody – a $3,000 five-week course teaching property preservation business-building, plus a $699 mini-course. - Motivational speaking – reportedly $196 per hour.
- Mimosas with Melody – her women’s empowerment brunch series.
- Sponsored Instagram posts – reportedly charges around $6,000 per post on @melodysholt.
- Music and writing – she released the song Tell Tale Signs in 2021 and is also a published author.
With Love & Marriage: Huntsville now off the income mix, the live financial question is whether her business income (particularly Seventh Avenue Beauty and Holt & Holt) can fully replace the TV paycheck. Most current estimates place her net worth at $2.2 million.
How Melody’s Wealth Was Actually Built
A few things make Melody’s financial story stand out from the typical reality-star profile:
She didn’t start in real estate. Holt & Holt began as a lawn care company, then pivoted into property preservation which is a recession-resistant niche. The $3,000 Masterclass with Melody isn’t generic “girlboss” content either; it teaches the same property preservation business model that made her wealthy.
The path also wasn’t smooth. Court records filed during her 2020 divorce revealed a $131,483 federal tax lien against the couple’s joint finances, a reminder that the multi-million-dollar empire carried real liabilities along the way.
Family Life In The Spotlight
Melody married Martell in July 2008, the two became business partners and had four children. One son, Martell Jr., and three daughters named Mariah, Malani, and Maliah.
Sadly, the couple split up once Melody discovered that Martell was seeing another woman. They reconciled for some time, but she eventually filed for divorce.
Despite the public drama, the settlement itself was unusually clean for a divorce of this scale: no alimony, no child support, joint legal and physical custody of all four children, and an agreement to dissolve all jointly held businesses, including Holt & Holt Custom Homes, LLC.
The pair also listed their six-bedroom, six-bathroom Huntsville mansion for $1 million during the split. Co-parenting hasn’t been without conflict, Martell sued for full custody in 2022 but the financial division stuck.
