Does a musician make more money after his death? And is it the same story for all the rock stars? It was reported that Michael Jackson’s estate made more than $275 million this year, which is more than many other dead celebrities, Elvis Presley included, but also more than living celebrities like Lady Gaga, Madonna and Jay-Z. Quite impressive! He did not beat Oprah though!
Most of the money comes from his Sony/ATV music catalog, the movie ‘This is It’, and other merchandise associated with the King of Pop.
I never understood this, why do people buy more music when the person dies? Do they like him/her better dead? It is a weird behavior people always repeat over and over and the estate or the family of the dead knows that too well, putting out albums of unreleased material and releasing compilations after compilations.
For Michael Jackson, an album of unreleased songs is expected to bring in up to $250 million over the next seven years, and there is a 3-D movie based on the song Thriller in the making.
But where is all this money going? It seems that a lot of it goes to consolidate his debt. As everyone knows, Jackson had left an enormous debt when he died, and all these doctor bills among many other less harmful eccentricities have to be paid.
According to music-news.com, Katherine Jackson, who has custody of Jackson’s 3 children, did not receive anything from the estate since his death and is reported receiving right now financial aid from Janet Jackson. At least this is what she told Oprah Winfrey, and, as we know, if you tell Oprah that must be true. In the meantime, Randy was not happy with the meeting, tweeting ‘I found out Oprah was at our family home, my stomach ached and it still hasn’t gone away’, ‘I can never forget when she had the show on pedophilia during the jury deliberation in my brother’s Santa Maria case’. The Jackson family is known for its numerous complicated stories, and any move of one of the members triggers a series of reactions from all the other ones.
In what seems to be an obvious attempt to recover the money she has not received, Katherine Jackson, who is the vice chairman of the Jackson Family Foundation (her husband Joe Jackson is the chairman) wants to host a tribute concert, ‘Legacy of the Legend’ on Nov. 13 in Atlanta, in memorial of her son. Again, siblings Rebbie and Randy have declared they were in no way associated with this event or the foundation.
And since we are talking about Jackson’s parents, Joe Jackson, despite being excluded from his son’s will, has been also trying really hard to get some of the money and control over the estate affair, but a few days ago, the California Second District Court of Appeal rejected his bid. Joe, who never gives up when there is money to grab, has also filed a lawsuit against his son’s doctor Dr Conrad Murray (he is demanding between $10 million and $500 million in compensation, quite a range!), but the lawsuit has revealed that he was in fact supported by his son’s money when he was alive: Katherine was receiving money from her son as her agent and was funneling funds to Joe!
Following Jackson’s money is a complicated process, a maze of intricate family stories, trials and bad blood: but $275 M is a huge amount of money and nobody in the family seems to get the dough.