We all dream about becoming rich and famous and we know that while we’d live the high life we’d never blow our WHOLE fortune. On the other hand wouldn’t you shell out for a Tyrannosaurus Rex skull, a shark, and your own pyramid tomb? That’s what Nicolas Cage did. See how easy it is to spend money? And we guess that’s why there’s dozens of celebrities who have gone from vast riches to broke (plus, you know, in some cases there’s also alcohol, drugs, and gambling). Lets take a looksy at some of the rich famous who ended up virtual paupers.
Nic Cage
Oh hey, big surprise to start off on. What might surprise you is Nic is still one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors even though he’s mostly doing drek. But he needs the work after blowing money on endless crazy crap. He’s in serious trouble with the IRS so we guess he’ll have to sell off his first issue of Superman, his albino king cobras, private jet, private island, and collection of shrunken heads.
MC Hammer
If this 90’s pop rapper is mentioned at all nowadays it’s usually as a punchline to a joke about celebs blowing their money. He had one hit album and when his follow up failed to score he was unable to afford simple luxuries in life like paying the salaries of a 200 person entourage and the mortgage on his $30,000,000 mansion. Don’t worry, he’s making his comeback by launching his own search engine.
Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson made an estimated $400,000,000 over the course of his boxing career. So obviously he has money forever right? Nope, he filed for bankruptcy in 2003 stating he was $23,000,000 in the hole. He did the standard of blowing mad cash on personal possessions like his own tiger. But he also didn’t bother to pay taxes which put a major hole in his finances.
Francis Ford Coppola
The director of The Godfather went from vast riches to liabilities listed at $98,000,000. To pay off debts is the only reason Coppola directed movies like Jack (the one where Robin Williams literally plays a man-child) and the infamous Godfather 3. One of the reasons he filed for bankruptcy (the first time at least) was he self financed his film One From the Heart. It’s a depressing, heart wrenching, musical (!) that he shelled out some $26,000,000 of his money for. It made less than 1% of that sum back at the box office.
Michael Jackson
One of the highest earning artists of all time was anywhere from $200,000,000 to $700,000,000 in debt when he died. If fact, before Michael died from cardiac arrest he was planning an extensive comeback tour and album mostly to raise money to pay off his creditors. Where did all the money go? Well, pet monkeys, your own theme park, and settling lawsuits from parents don’t come cheap.
What would you blow millions on? Tell us in the comments!
