Former sitcom star becomes ‘masked vigilante’

There was a time when Kunal Nayyar was reportedly earning $1 million per episode, delivering punchlines under the pop-culture glow of The Big Bang Theory. For 12 seasons, his character Raj Koothrappali turned selective mutism into prime-time gold and made Nayyar one of television’s most bankable faces. Forbes would later rank him among the world’s highest-paid TV actors, with earnings reported at $20 million one year and $23.5 million another. The numbers were loud. The success, deafening.

What’s quieter is what he does with it.

In a recent interview with The i Paper, Nayyar shared a habit that feels almost cinematic in its restraint: logging onto GoFundMe late at night and anonymously paying off medical bills for random families. No gala. No foundation bearing his name. No photo op with an oversized check. Just a scroll, a click, a transfer and, somewhere, a hospital balance reduced to zero.

He described it as his “masked vigilante thing,” a line that reads playful but carries weight when viewed from the receiving end.

“Money has given me greater freedom and the greatest gift is the ability to give back, to change people’s lives,” Nayyar quipped.

“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 story began trending alongside another GoFundMe campaign — this one organized by friends of James Van Der Beek, which reportedly raised $2.6 million for his family following his death after a battle with cancer.