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The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2023
The King of Pop reigns in the afterlife once more along with an all-star roster of performers—including Elvis, Whitney Houston and Prince—from the great beyond.
www.forbes.com
The King of Pop reigns in the afterlife once more along with an all-star roster of performers—including Elvis, Whitney Houston and Prince—from the great beyond.
Being dead isn’t the gig it used to be. The 13 deceased musicians, authors and other A-listers on Forbes’ annual ranking of the highest-paid dead celebrities earned some $470 million during the past 12 months—a 70% decrease from the record-breaking $1.6 billion grossed in 2022.
The steep decline is due, in part, to the drop in nine-figure music catalog sales that boosted departed stars' earnings into the heavens. More than half of last year’s top dead celebrities did so through acquisitions of their intellectual property. This year, only one did: The estate of Ray Manzarek, late keyboardist for the Doors, sold his interest in the band’s work to Primary Wave, alongside guitarist Robby Krieger. The deal, which sources tell Forbes was between $80 million and $100 million for both artists, puts Manzarek at No. 3 this year. But that is a flat world away from the $500 million the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien, the long-deceased author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, received for his Middle Earth Enterprises in 2022, or the $250 million the estate of David Bowie got last year for his publishing catalog and masters.
Without catalog sales inflating the earnings of deceased stars like Manzarek, the top earners on this year’s list are familiar afterlife performers. Michael Jackson returns to the No. 1 spot for the first time in four years with an estimated $115 million in earnings. He’s followed by his late father-in-law Elvis Presley at No. 2. Two beloved artists round out the top five with Dr. Seuss at No. 4 and Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz at No. 5.
Bernard Resnick, an entertainment lawyer who represents celebrities both living and deceased, sees three causes for the cooling of catalog deals. For one, the investments typically require many years before they produce a meaningful return. “The companies that are out there buying up the catalogs have in some ways exhausted their capital,” Resnick tells Forbes. “It’s also more expensive to borrow money,” Resnick adds, making it harder for companies who are doing so to buy catalogs to “buy as many or pay as much.”
Finally, Resnick sees an issue with supply. “A lot of those legacy artists and writers who were interested in selling their catalogs, their estates have already done that,” he says. “There aren’t that many available.” And certain artists aren’t interested in selling out—but their children are typically more inclined to do so, Resnick says.
The owner of a catalog also has a finite window—they can only maintain the copyright for 70 years after an artist has died. “With dead celebrities, the clock is ticking,” Resnick says, making the works of long-dead stars less desirable than those who are recently deceased.
Further threatening the catalog supply is the growing number of artists who cash in while they’re still alive. Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Dr. Dre are just some of the musicians who sold their music rights this year—each for upwards of $200 million. “It’s like winning the lottery,” Resnick says of artists who cash in while still young. “Do you want the payout today and you have it for the rest of your life and it can grow for you, or do you want the annuity for 25 years?”
Still, some stars are finding new life after death. While he was too recently departed to make the 2023 list, Jimmy Buffett is expected to salt away big money in 2024. The billionaire “Margaritaville” singer died in September from cancer and had the first No. 1 hit of his career a few weeks later.
#1 | $115 Million
MICHAEL JACKSON
June 25, 2009 (50)†
Overdose/Homicide
The King of Pop returns to the top of the highest-earning dead celebrities list for the first time since 2019 thanks to the Broadway hit MJ: The Musical, which grossed some $85 million in ticket sales over the past year. Jackson also rings up millions from the Cirque du Soleil show, Michael Jackson ONE, in Las Vegas. His earnings should continue to rise—earlier this year the estate signed onto Michael, a biopic to be directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar.
Full list in the link.