How many times has it occurred to you, perhaps while looking over your mile-long credit card statement or lusting over designer dresses at the mall, that life would be so much easier with an extra million dollars at your disposal? It’s not asking for a lot, really. Just enough to pay off student loans, take a dream trip to Fiji, and stop feeling guilty about your daily latte addiction. But maybe one million dollars wouldn’t even be enough. After all, celebrities have many millions of dollars, and they seem to fall into financial troubles just as easily as the rest of us. Lady Gaga recently shared with the world that her latest tour put her in the bankruptcy club—a club with a surprising number of famous members, including the following eight big spenders.
Lady Gaga
In a May 2011 interview for the Financial Times, the “Bad Romance” singer said that her hugely popular world tour, Monster Ball, left her bankrupt after its first leg. “I put everything in the show,” she told interviewer Stephen Fry. It included multiple costume changes, elaborate set designs, and reportedly, quite a bit of experimenting and reformatting. She recalled being astonished to learn that she was three million dollars in debt(“This is ridiculous, I have five number-one singles,” she said), but fortunately for her, the tour was so successful that she earned the money back. Gaga claims not to care about money in the interview, though she did buy her parents a Rolls Royce simply because their old license plate that said “Lady Gaga” on it annoyed her. Wouldn’t a quick phone call to the DMV have cost much less?
Burt Reynolds
Things started going downhill for Reynolds after his messy divorce from Loni Anderson in 1993. The legal fees and settlement, as well as a series of bad investment choices, a lack of interest from movie producers, and sluggish performances at the box office, led the one-time Hollywood powerhouse to declare bankruptcy in 1996. At the time, Reynolds was ten million dollars in debt, but by 1998, he emerged from bankruptcy—the same year he won an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor in
Lady Gaga
In a May 2011 interview for the Financial Times, the “Bad Romance” singer said that her hugely popular world tour, Monster Ball, left her bankrupt after its first leg. “I put everything in the show,” she told interviewer Stephen Fry. It included multiple costume changes, elaborate set designs, and reportedly, quite a bit of experimenting and reformatting. She recalled being astonished to learn that she was three million dollars in debt(“This is ridiculous, I have five number-one singles,” she said), but fortunately for her, the tour was so successful that she earned the money back. Gaga claims not to care about money in the interview, though she did buy her parents a Rolls Royce simply because their old license plate that said “Lady Gaga” on it annoyed her. Wouldn’t a quick phone call to the DMV have cost much less?
Burt Reynolds
Things started going downhill for Reynolds after his messy divorce from Loni Anderson in 1993. The legal fees and settlement, as well as a series of bad investment choices, a lack of interest from movie producers, and sluggish performances at the box office, led the one-time Hollywood powerhouse to declare bankruptcy in 1996. At the time, Reynolds was ten million dollars in debt, but by 1998, he emerged from bankruptcy—the same year he won an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor in
