Michael Jackson has the #1 spot on Forbes’ list of Top-Earning Deceased Celebrities for the third year in a row
In the time since Michael Jackson’s sudden death in 2009, the financial story that has played out has been nothing short of a thriller. The King of Pop has earned more than $1 billion before taxes since then, enough to pay off his personal debts and then some.
This year Jackson again leads our list of the 13 top-earning dead celebrities, pulling in $115 million over the past year. The main drivers of his afterlife fortune: the Vegas Cirque du Soleil show Michael Jackson One, the Mijac Music catalog, recorded music sales and half of the Sony /ATV publishing empire.
“When a composer [or] a performer dies, that’s it,” says Josh Rubenstein, National Chair of Trusts and Estates at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. “It’s no more … once they’re dead and there can’t be any more [work], all of the sudden everybody comes in and says, ‘Oh, we’ve got to get this guy.’”
SOURCE: FORBES
