David Hasselhoff is broke... how the hell?

Well, broke-ish. Most of us would trade places with him income and net worth wise, but considering how much he’s earned it’s practically broke. Story

Hasselhoff famously owned his show BAYWATCH, which flopped on network but became one of the most popular syndicated shows in the world and made him truckloads of money- hundreds of millions of dollars by some counts. Now he says he has $4,000 in cash and $1.79 million in assets and wants his alimony of $21,000 per month reduced because he says he can’t survive on what’s left after that. (He still has an income of over $1 million per year but says after taxes and expenses it isn’t enough.)

How exactly do stars get into these situations?

How do you earn more than $100,000,000- he probably earned that even after taxes and agents fees- and wind up with $4,000 in cash and less than $2 million in total assets? You’d think you’d have that in your sofa cushions.
It doesn’t happen to all.
Naming a random name as an example: I watched an at-home show with Marion Ross, the actress who played Mrs. Cunningham on Happy Days, whose career were probably less than what Hasselhoff earned in a single year in the 1990s, and judging by her home- lovely, large, with pool- and her surroundings she’s extremely comfortable in her retirement. Ditto George Takei and other D-listers from the convention circuit never earned a fraction of Hasselhoffgeld but live very nicely and if they’re broke they don’t show it.
Are there any “most common mistakes” for the Ed McMahon/Burt Reynolds/most boxers/any number of country divas/class who literally go through enough money to keep a college running almost indefinitely with only scraps left to show for it?

All those floor hamburgers can get expensive.

Many rich people have thought that they had so much money, that they could never spend it all.

A large percentage of those people set out to test that theory.

A VERY large percentage of those people found out that they could, indeed, spend it all.

Add to stupidity bad investments and just plain bad luck. There’s an old saying–“Riches take wings and fly away.”

I doubt the story is completely true (if at all) because it is an argument being used in preparation for an alimony battle. Not that I am a big fan of long-term alimony but it is obvious that most men in that situation try to appear as poor as possible when court time comes.

The really suspicious thing is that he claims he isn’t completely broke or even living on the true edge - he claims he just can’t afford the current alimony payment. It generally doesn’t work that way. I can certainly understand his irritation but plenty of celebrities are terrible with money and burn through it like there is a $100 bill bonfire party going on. They rarely just stop when they see they are getting a little low. Instead, they go negative in a big way often followed by bankruptcy if they can’t turn things around. Hardly any of them just completely change their lifestyle on a dime unless they are forced to and having just a few thousand in the bank isn’t usually the level of wake-up call needed.

I would bet a whole lot of my own money that he has plenty still tucked away all over the world that he can access as soon as the alimony battle is over.

I choose to believe he’s spent it all building a real life KITT.

Or a real life Pamela Anderson

It don’t matter what you make, if you spend more than you make, you will end up broke. This is true for the guy begging for change by the liquor store, and equally true for Bill Gates.

There’s a great episode of the ESPN show 30 for 30 entitled Broke. It’s all about how the majority of professional athletes, who earn millions a year, are broke only a few years after they retire. As Icarus points out, if you spend more than you make, you’re going to go broke, and it’s real easy to let that money slip though your fingers.

When I heard of “bottle service girls”, that explained in large part why so many professional athletes go broke in short order. This kind of thing also one reason why trust funds are often not accessible until the child is well into his or her 20s or even older.

http://firstwefeast.com/drink/secret-lives-of-los-angeles-bottle-service-girls

It doesn’t sound like this is the case for Hasselhoff, but I’ve heard of celebrities who trusted the wrong people to manage their money and wound up losing a lot. Leonard Cohen’s former manager managed to drain millions of dollars from his retirement and charitable funds before being discovered; he won a lawsuit against her but will probably never get back anywhere near what he lost.

There’s no amount of money so large that you can’t spend it all. It’s like the old cliche goes: if you have a $20,000 annual income and $19,000 in annual expenses, you’re doing okay. But if you have a $2,000,000 annual income and $2,001,000 in annual expenses, you’re in trouble.

This is a good of a thread as any to post my favorite comedian roasting The Hoff:

It was just in the news this week that Alanis Morissette is accusing a former manager of embezzling more than $5 million

When Andy Warhol was shot in the late 1960s, he thought he had health insurance but found out later that he didn’t; he gave the money to an employee that he trusted, and that person pocketed it instead of paying the premiums. :mad: There are plenty of other wealthy people who didn’t realize they had married the wrong person until it was way too late.

Something like 95% of people who become millionaires from winning money (lotteries and the like) end up back at the pre-winning income within 5 years.

In other words they blow it all. This tends to happen to people who get their money from luck, for lack of a better term. Winning a lottery is luck. Writing a best selling book or album is luck. Same with a t.v. show.*

The people who become rich that way tend to not have the required money management skills. Every time I hear people talk about what they would do if they won a million bucks, I cringe. They talk about buying a giant house without thinking about the taxes, a Ferrari without thinking about the insurance, etc.

So they get a lot of money, then spend more than they can afford because they don’t understand the basics or that most big purchases have additional ongoing costs.

People like Bill Gates get rich partially due to luck but also because they understand money. So when thr money comes in they take care of it and make it grow.

Slee

  • There may be a lot of hard work and talent behind a book, album or t.v. show but that has little to do with how well it will do. Having a hit book, album or t.v. show is just luck as far as I can tell.

A lot of it is people simply living beyond their means. Then there is all the relatives and friends coming out of the woodwork begging for money. Shady businesspeople trying to get celebrities to invest in businesses or products that are destined to fail. I’m shocked how people like Tyson and 50 cent could supposedly blow through $300 Million or more, 50 Cent may be lowballing somewhat because he lost that recent lawsuit and was ordered to pay millions. A lot of these cars and houses that celebrities buy just cost insane amounts of money to maintain and insure, its not just the luxury itself but the cost of ownership too. Curt Schilling the baseball player made an estimated $115 Million over his career but just kept sinking money into a video game studio he was trying to create and it ultimately failed, today his net worth is estimated at only a million.

95% go back to pre-winning income ? Where did this figure came from?

Did you know 90% of statistics are made up on the spot?

There’s maybe a little bit that can be learned, but probably the major element of success for an author/director/showrunner is to have the same sense of taste as most people. Steven Spielberg is probably famous because he likes the same sorts of things that most people like, rather than that he is particularly superior in his craft. Same with Stephen King or JJ Abrams. (Not to say that they aren’t good at their craft, just that the element which makes them strong earners is their preferences.)

If you’re going to plagiarize Dickens, you could at least acknowledge him. :slight_smile:

Here we have 5 people who are rehashing the points that I made before any of you, and yet none of you bother to acknowledge that fact. Sometimes I think I’m invisible on this board.

I think that the main point to get here is that you can’t live beyond your means, regardless what your means may be.