What Happened To Michael Jacksons Millions
Counting wasn’t a problem for Michael Jackson in the 1970 hit “ABC”. Love, he chirped in the Jackson 5 song he co-wrote, was as “easy as 1 2 3.” When it came to handling the bigger sums the singer would go on to amass, though, Jackson never really got a grip on the numbers. Profligate spending, a slew of legal settlements, and a reliance on ever-increasing bank loans blew a hole in the fortune Jackson earned over four decades of performing. Some estimates put the singer’s debt at the time of his death at 300 million. Others put him almost twice as far into the red. (See pictures of people around the world mourning Michael Jackson.)
That the King of Pop earned royal sums for his music, though, there’s little doubt. Jackson pocketed more than 300 million from sales of his recordings since the early 1980s, according to The New York Times. Thriller, which was the top-selling album of all time (until eclipsed by the Eagles’ Greatest Hits, 1971-1975), brought in a reported 125 million for the singer in the years after its release in 1982. Though there were early signs of an inclination to spend – he apparently missed out on landing the bones of John Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, despite bidding around 1 million in 1987 – Jackson showed early investment savvy. Shelling out 47.5 million in 1985 for the rights to a catalogue of music that included 251 Beatles songs was a profitable move. Those rights, as well as concerts, endorsements and music videos, would generate more than 400 million over the next two decades. (See the top 10 Michael Jackson moments.)
Little else about his finances was as clever. Blessed with the regular rewards from the Beatles’ music and his own, Jackson started to spend. He paid 17 million in 1988 for the 2,800-acre (roughly 1,000 hectare) ranch in California that would become Neverland. Maintaining the theme park – complete with zoo, movie theater and fairground – swallowed up around 5 million annually. As Jackson gradually retreated from work, the additional millions eaten up by plane charters, antiques, lavish gifts and legal disputes – a child-molestation case in the early 1990s cost Jackson around 20 million to settle – left a hole in his fortune. To help plug it, the singer signed over to Sony a 50% stake in the rights to the Beatles’ catalogue in 1995 in exchange for almost 100 million. (Watch TIME’s video “Appreciating Michael Jackson, the Musician.”)
Things would get worse. With sponsors turned off by Jackson’s private life – Pepsi and sneaker brand LA Gear, for instance, had backed him – he lost further control of his finances. Duff investments and a divorce settlement with Lisa Marie Presley helped push Jackson to increasingly use his earnings from music as collateral for loans, first from Bank of America (BoA), before Fortress Investment Group, a specialist in distressed debt, took the loans off BoA’s hands. By the middle part of this decade, Jackson was believed to be 270 million in debt. (See the all-TIME 100 Albums.)
With annual income from the sale of his and his catalogue’s music at around 19 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, Jackson was still stretched. When the singer defaulted on a loan in March last year, pushing Neverland into foreclosure, private equity firm Colony Capital stepped in to bail him out. The 50 concerts planned for London later this year could have netted Jackson as much as 100 million, with a possible world tour to follow generating five times that amount. To Jackson’s debtors, if not to the singer himself, that sure would have added up.
Read: “A Pop Icon’s Death: The Talent and the Tragedy.”
See pictures of Michael Jackson’s famous friends on LIFE.com.
See CNN’s special report on Michael Jackson’s life and death.
View this article on Time.comRelated articles on Time.com: What Happened to Michael Jackson’s Millions? Michael Jackson’s Mysterious Medical Past Michael Jackson, 1958-2009: The Talent and the Tragedy Michael Jackson: The Death of Peter Pan The London Concerts: Michael Jackson’s Missed Comeback
