Yep, the obvious is true: Sir Paul McCartney is a billionaire
Who else makes the list? Mick Jagger? Bob Dylan? Jay-Z? Bono?
Dead people don’t count, even though Michael Jackson makes more dead than alive.
Hip hop doesn’t have it’s first billionaire yet. My first thought was that it might be Russell Simmons (if producers count), but a quick google shows that at $340 million he’s still behind Sean Combs at $475-$500 million and Jay-Z at $450 million.
Neat website showing celebrities net worth - apparently Bono’s close, $900 million.
I’m surprised Bono is so high, he certainly gives the impression that he gives most of it away. Apparently he gives more time than money.
Maybe he started with $2B.
Gene Simmons has gotta be up there near the top.
While I would have huge concerns about how that web site reaches its numbers, it does say that $700 million (78%) of Bono’s money is from an early investment in Facebook and references a private trading valuation of Facebook of $55 billion (not sure how that ends up being $700 million since 1.5% would be $825 million).
Assuming the same proportion at the recent reported valuation of $68.2 billion that would up him to $867 billion just in Facebook. So if he still has the $200 million from other stuff he’d be over a billion on paper.
Again assuming a bunch of unsourced numbers.
U2 have a bit of form for that kind of thing:
Bono does not own the entire 1.5% stake, Elevation Partners does in which he is a General Partner. Elevation did not put up the initial 200M stake, they raised that from investors. The normal terms are that they get 2% of the original investment and 20% of any profit so Elevation Partners as a whole will probably make around $100M on the deal. There’s 5 GPs and Bono was almost certainly not the lead investor in the deal so it’s unlikely he’s getting more then $20M out of the deal.
Here’s another list:
http://www.mademan.com/mm/10-richest-singers-world.html
It claims that Jay-Z is closest at about half a billion.
Here’s one more list:
It has Sean Combs higher than Jay-Z.
The 2nd list looks like a list of singers who did well other than their music income.
It’s solely McCartney, no one else is even close. Bono’s 900 million is grossly exaggerated.
While MacCartney and Bono are both global stars, nobody outside the U.S. has ever heard of KISS.
You’ve gotta be kidding - KISS was easily the biggest “heavy” rock band in the world from the late 70’s to early-mid 80’s, image-wise, at least. You couldn’t throw a stick at any Scandinavian school yard without hitting a couple of die-hard KISS fans. KISS posters covered the walls of early teenager kids’ rooms like mine and my friends’, and pop and rock magazines featured the band constantly. Of course, Gene Simmons was the baddest cat. Now, you can count on rocker guys in their 30’s and 40’s getting all nostalgic when someone mentions the band and EVERYONE under 50 knows who Gene Simmons is. In this regard, he’s easily in the same league as Bono and any other rock superstar below the likes of the Beatles, the Stones and Elvis.
While Benny & Bjorn have made an obscene amount of money from Mamma Mia!'a grand rights (money played to a composer every time their music is performed on stage), the richest former ABBA member is Her Serene Highness Princess Anni-Frid Synni Reuss of Plauen (a/k/a “the redhead,”) who married Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss of Plauen in 1992 and inherited about $700 million when he died in 1999.
I consider myself whooshed; no clue what point or joke you are trying to make…
Chairman of De Beers, you know diamonds.
Ah…cute.
What about Elton John? He should be up there, though probably not a billionaire