Sir Elton John was recently named the fourth richest musician on the Sunday Times Rich List 2022. But getting there hasn’t been easy for the Cold heart hitmaker. Despite owning five multi-million dollar mansions, the British singer is known to have exceeded his huge net worth.
At one point, he reportedly spent $48 million in just two years. In the early 2000s, the brutally honest entertainer also lost $12 million after suing his former accounting firm for $30 million. Here’s what really happened.
How did Elton John amass his fortune?
John made most of his money from his music career. He sold over 300 million records worldwide and produced several classics that we still hear today. But the singer, whose birth name is Reginald Kenneth Dwight, struggled growing up.
He grew up in council housing which he described as ‘the kind of council housing that had sprung up all over Britain in the 1920s and 1930s: three bedrooms, adjoining, red brick on the ground floor and plaster painted white above floor,” according to his 2019 autobiography, Me.
The Sacrifice the artist also had an abusive mother. In his book, he writes that she was “always looking for a reason not to be happy” or “looking for a fight.”
She also had a “spare the stem, spoil the child” parenting approach. John went through it all with records by his side. His childhood was heavily influenced by artists like Johnnie Ray, Frankie Laine, Nat King Cole, Guy Mitchell and Elvis Presley – who had the biggest impact on his path to music.
“I had never experienced anything like this in my life,” he said of the music from the king of rock and roll. “As Altar of broken hearts played, I had the impression that something had changed, that nothing could really be like before. It turned out that there was something, and nothing was.”
At six or seven, John already knew how to play the piano, so by 15 he could earn £15 ($21 today) a week in tips playing the piano in a pub – a gig he got from the boyfriend of her mother, Fred.
After leaving music school and getting a job at a music publishing company on Denmark Street in London, which he hoped would be the gateway to the music industry, Dick James insisted that John do his debut in the United States after the release in 1970 of his second album, Elton John. In 1971, the album went gold in the United States. It also earned him Grammy Award nominations for Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance that year.
What is Elton John’s net worth now?
As of 2022, John has an estimated net worth of $500 million. According Celebrity net worthhe earns $80 million a year during a touring year and is paid $500,000 a night to perform in Las Vegas.
His assets also include $100-200 million in art and $50 million in real estate. Despite all that fortune, the 75-year-old icon leaves her two sons, Zachary, 11, and Elijah, 9, out of her will.
“Of course I want to leave my boys in a very healthy financial position,” he explained to Mirror in 2016. “But it’s terrible to give children a silver spoon. It ruins their lives.” He also clarified that while he wants his kids to work hard for their own money one day, he is aware that they have a big advantage as the kids of celebrities.
“Look, the boys live amazing lives, they’re not normal kids, and I’m not pretending they are,” John added. “But you have to have some semblance of normalcy, some respect for money, some respect for work.”
Why did Elton John sue his accounting firm for $30 million?
In 2000, John sued his former accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (represented by Mark Hapgood), along with Andrew Haydon, the former managing director of John Reid Enterprises (JREL). This was due to their “negligence” in the pop star’s overseas tour expenses.
The little dancer the artist claimed that the “several millions” he had spent on tour should have been placed under a JREL management agreement. He also alleged he was “scammed” by Reid, his former business manager and ex-lover.
Giving evidence to the High Court in London on November 5, 2000, John said: “I have no one to leave the money to. I am a single man. I like to spend my money.”
Around this time, it was also revealed that he spent $36 million over a 20-month period ($1.8 million per month). Hapgood went on to say that the singer went “spending mad” after a $60 million deal with the Polygram label in February 1996.
After 43 days of hearings and five weeks of jury deliberations, John lost his $30 million lawsuit. He was not present in court to hear the verdict, but was charged $12 million in court costs. “I have found this case to fail on the facts,” Judge Andrew Ferris said at the time. Haydon’s employer, Reid, settled out of court by paying the ‘Rocket Man’ $5 million.