Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar Quietly Wipes Out Strangers’ Medical Bills at Night

Kunal Nayyar isn’t just a TV millionaire; he’s a real-life masked hero for families drowning in medical debt. The Big Bang Theory star, who played the beloved Raj Koothrappali for 12 seasons, has revealed his late-night ritual: dropping in on GoFundMe and anonymously paying off random families’ hospital bills. No PR push. No social media shoutouts. Just life-changing generosity, on repeat.

This isn’t some one-off act. For Nayyar, wealth isn’t a burden. If anything, he says it’s “a grace from the universe,” and he’s not letting it sit idle. Alongside his wife, Neha Kapur (herself a former Miss India and now a fashion designer), Nayyar also pours his success into university scholarships for underprivileged youth and throws support behind animal charities (“because we love dogs,” he says with a grin).

When asked about what giving back means to him, Nayyar put it plainly:

“Money has given me greater freedom, and the greatest gift is the ability to give back, to change people’s lives… But what I really love to do is go on GoFundMe at night and just pay random families’ medical bills. That’s my masked vigilante thing! So, no, money doesn’t feel like a burden. It feels like a grace from the universe.”

The Riches Behind Raj: Where Nayyar’s Success Led Him

If you watched network TV between 2007 and 2019, you couldn’t escape The Big Bang Theory. Its primetime reign saw Nayyar’s paychecks balloon; by the final seasons, he was making $1 million per episode, standing shoulder to shoulder with TV’s highest-paid actors.

Forbes didn’t miss this. In both 2015 and 2018, Nayyar landed as the third highest-paid television actor in the world, with his yearly income spiking up to $23.5 million at the show’s peak. But for Nayyar, despite the “staggering” numbers, the money itself doesn’t weigh heavy. The real legacy, he insists, is how much good he can do from the freedom it provides.

Fans loved watching Nayyar as Raj, the sweet-natured astrophysicist, across all 279 episodes, a run few of the cast completed from the very start to the emotional finale. Even after the show’s 2019 close, the Big Bang Theory universe kept growing. Prequel series Young Sheldon became a hit, and now Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage is set to continue the franchise’s storytelling streak.

New Roles, Old Values: Nayyar’s Art Reflects His Heart

If you thought Nayyar rode off into the sitcom sunset, think again. He’s racked up a stack of post-TBBT credits: from Netflix’s crime drama Criminal: UK to Apple TV’s thriller Suspicion, and kid-friendly work like voicing characters in Trolls.

This year, he’s taking a dramatic turn as star of Christmas Karma, a 2025 musical film that reimagines Dickens’ A Christmas Carol through a contemporary South Asian lens. Nayyar plays Mr. Eshaan Sood, a kind of “Indian Scrooge.” But in this retelling, Sood’s complex relationship with wealth grows from the trauma of his family’s forced migration after Uganda’s 1972 expulsion of Asians, not typical greed. The film brings in a cast including Hugh Bonneville, Eva Longoria, Billy Porter, and even Boy George as the Ghosts of Christmas, helmed by director Gurinder Chadha.

The movie isn’t just about ghosts and glitter. By weaving in real stories of displacement and searching for belonging, the adaptation grounds Dickens’ classic in tough, relevant issues, proving Nayyar’s roles keep reflecting his belief in compassion, far from the sitcom laugh track.

Nayyar’s private missions, quirky as they are, reveal a public figure quietly redistributing the privilege fame can bring. Whether he’s funding aspiring students, supporting animal shelters, or zapping away medical bills for families he’ll never meet, he’s showing that being a celebrity can mean more than being seen; it can mean making a visible difference, silently.