Pop legend and icon Michael Jackson may have died 5 years ago, but he's still raking in the big bucks despite that. This is a testament to the King of Pop's commercial appeal and money magnetism, as Forbes has explained in its recent piece about his earnings.
"Michael Jackson's latest posthumous album, 'Xscape', debuted earlier this month with opening week sales of 157,000, landing at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart," the business and finance site noted. "That will undoubtedly fatten the total amount the King of Pop has raked in since his death-well over $700 million in the past five years."
That's a lot of money - something still-alive Hollywood denizens can hardly match.
MJ's musical talents and releases may have overshadowed the fact that the superstar is actually business savvy. "In addition to releasing the best-selling album of all time and grossing hundreds of millions of the road, Jackson paved the way for modern musician-moguls by launching his own sneakers, clothes, video games and other ventures," Forbes continued. "His lifetime total: $1.1 billion, or just shy of $2 billion when accounting for inflation. Add adjusted posthumous figures, and the number soars to nearly $3 billion."
Rapper and entrepreneur Ludacris, given name Christopher Bridges, weighed in on Michael's continued revenue-raking streak. "He was extremely smart. From my perspective, because I'm business-oriented and savvy, I noticed and even read up on everything he did."
The Gloved One's "earning prowess" was so exemplary that he still managed to have a stellar year in 1995, sales-wise, despite the child molestation raps that shook up his career in 1993. However, he was unable to rev up his financial engine once more after another round of allegations and trials came his way in 2005.
When 2009 came, his estate started "earning nine-figure sums annually" once more, despite his death.
"The executors of his estate scored a whopping $250 million new record deal from Sony, released concert film This Is It (which grossed over $260 million), and launched two Cirque du Soleil shows," Forbes pointed out. "Jackson's gaudy postmortem totals were also boosted significantly by earnings from the assets he accumulated in life-namely, the Sony/ATV publishing catalogue that contains the copyrights to most of the Beatles' biggest hits, as well as other songs by the likes of Lady Gaga, Eminem and Taylor Swift."
You probably didn't know he owns the rights of most of the Fab Four's hit songs, right?
Berry Gordy, an MJ insider, said that the artist "had a kid's heart, but a mind of a genius."
"He was so loving and soft-spoken, and a thinker. . . . He wanted to do everything, and he was capable. You can only do so much in a lifetime," Gordy added.
Check out this infographic from Forbes:
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