The 25th annual of the posthumous success of deceased musicians, athletes and authors, from The Notorious B.I.G. to Jimmy Buffett. Plus: How Michael Jackson earned $3.5 billion in the afterlife.
www.forbes.com
The King of Pop’s estate has earned an astonishing $3.5 billion since his death in 2009, according to
Forbes estimates, topping this year’s list once again with $105 million in earnings over the past 12 months. “When it comes to estate earnings,” one high-profile estate lawyer tells
Forbes, “It’s MJ, then an enormous canyon, then everybody else.”
The biggest paydays came from unwinding assets that Jackson accumulated during his life. In addition to owning his own publishing rights and master recordings, Jackson also purchased the ATV catalog for $47.5 million in 1985—about $142 million today—which included among its nearly 4,000 songs almost every hit written together by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. That investment eventually returned $750 million in 2016 (around $1 billion today) when the estate sold its stake to Sony. Not included in that sale was Jackson’s own publishing and master recordings, but in 2024 his estate sold a 50% stake in those assets to Sony for another $600 million—much to the dismay of Jackson’s mother, Katherine, who said the sale would be against Jackson’s wishes and tried to block the deal in court.
In all the years between megadeals, Jackson’s brand has continued to mint money across many different categories—almost entirely unaffected by the sexual abuse allegations that hung over the final years of his life, or the 2019
Finding Neverland documentary detailing them. His posthumous 2009 concert film,
This Is It, grossed $267 million at the box office, and an MJ-themed Cirque du Soleil tour in 2012 grossed $160 million, making it the most successful concert tour of that year and earning Jackson more money than any living musician. That success gave rise to Cirque du Soleil’s
Michael Jackson ONE, which has held a residency in Las Vegas since 2013, and a Broadway show,
MJ: The Musical, which debuted in 2022, totaling almost $300 million in total ticket sales and spawning several international productions.
AS IT SHOULD BE 
