Membership in the global billionaires club has expanded with the addition of American singer Taylor Swift to its ranks, according to a classification published by Forbes magazine of the wealth of world celebrities.
Published on: 04/04/2024 – 17:20
3 minutes
With assets now estimated at about $1.1 billion, Swift (34 years old), the owner of the song “Shake It Off,” has become the first musical artist (male or female) whose wealth exceeds the threshold of one billion dollars, due to her income resulting from her musical activity exclusively. The singer, who hails from Pennsylvania, saw her wealth grow by $360 million within a year, thanks to the huge revenues she earned from her long, 152-day tour entitled “The Eras Tour.”
According to several estimates, “ERAZ” is considered the highest-grossing concert series in the history of music, with revenues far exceeding the billion-dollar threshold. This tour, which is scheduled to end on December 8 in the Canadian city of Vancouver, has earned the singer $190 million to date, according to Forbes magazine.
The magazine estimates that since the beginning of her career, Taylor Swift has earned more than $500 million in royalties from songs and concerts.
Taylor Swift is a singer and author. She has written or co-written almost all of her works, and she is also a producer or co-producer of her works, which doubles her sources of income. Swift also re-recorded her first six albums, as she did not own the original recording rights to them, after the production company she was dealing with, Big Machine, refused to resell them to her.
According to Forbes, the singer’s music catalog is currently worth approximately $500 million. The magazine added to this wealth the value of real estate owned by Swift, amounting to $125 million, in addition to a private plane valued at $10 million.
The Eraz Tour, a synthesis of three concerts from the tour that grossed $261 million at the worldwide box office, also contributed to a significant increase in her personal wealth. Forbes did not count the film rights that Disney paid to Swift so she could show it on its Disney Plus platform, worth about $75 million.
The specialized music magazine Billboard estimated the sales of the Taylor Swift brand at approximately $1.82 billion in 2023, including music sales, concert tickets, merchandise, movie tickets, and royalties.
Taylor Swift is not the only music celebrity to have entered the club of the rich, which is closed to those whose wealth exceeds a billion dollars. She was preceded by rapper Jay-Z ($2.5 billion), singer Rihanna ($1.4 billion), and singer Jimmy Buffett ($1 billion), but they all owe… A portion of their wealth is invested in activities not directly related to music.
Among the artists who have achieved the largest revenues thanks to their music alone, Paul McCartney ranks second on the list behind Taylor Swift, as the “Sunday Times” newspaper last year estimated the assets of the former member of the famous “Beatles” band at 950 million pounds sterling (about 1.2 billion dollars). Note that this number also includes his wife’s wealth, which is estimated at approximately $200 million.
In addition to Paul McCartney, singer Beyoncé, whose assets were estimated by Forbes magazine at about $800 million last year, is approaching the symbolic threshold of $1 billion.
