Can’t Beat It! Michael Jackson Post-Death Finances Revealed
Michael Jackson earned $790 million in 2016, and his estate has made over $1.3 billion since his death, RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal.
The King of Pop was over $500 million in debt when he passed away in June 2009, but in the nine years since, an elite team of accountants and legal eagles has been working hard behind the scenes and turned his fortunes around.
Papers filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court by the executors of the estate, John Branca and John McClain, show the healthy condition of the singer’s current fortune, which benefits his three children: Prince Michael Joseph Jackson, 21, Paris, 20, and Prince Michael Jackson II, a.k.a. Blanket, 16, as well as Jackson’s mother, Katherine, 88.
The estate has boosted the late “Beat It” star’s assets through releasing music, licensing Jackson’s songs and likeness, creating a Las Vegas show based around the musician and taking advantage of the estate’s stake in a number of songs in EMI music publishing's extensive catalog.
Although the estate has paid off the mortgages of the family’s home in Los Angeles, looks after the maintenance of the buildings and provides a healthy allowance for Katherine and the children, they have no access to the estate’s many millions, since issues with various claimants are still being settled in probate court.
The case is not expected to be completely resolved before the ten-year anniversary of Jackson’s passing next year.
The court file even reveals how Jackson’s kids and mom, Katherine, had to borrow $250,000 each from the estate in order to settle the failed wrongful death lawsuit they brought against concert promoter AEG Live.
As RadarOnline.com reported, Jackson passed away in June 2009 from acute Propofol intoxication after the singer’s doctor, Conrad Murray, administered a dose of the hospital grade tranquilizer.
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In addition to Katherine, Blanket is also under the guardianship of Tito Jackson Jr., his 39-year-old cousin, for which the singer was paid a salary of $108,000 in 2015. He also previously served as co-guardian to Prince and Paris before they became adults.
During his lifetime, Jackson was well known for his lavish and extravagant spending sprees, and his amassed treasures are detailed in part in the court documents from 2015.
Jackson’s estate is in possession of a “train and carousel” valued at $2,500, five Rolls Royce cars, made between 1957 and 1998 and valued between $26,000 and $100,000, and a 2001 Bentley Armitage car worth $91,000.
Jackson’s estate spent $90,000 on upkeep at the singer’s famed Neverland Ranch, now a shell of its previous incarnation as a children’s wonderland.
Other spending included $400,000 on public relations and legal fees came to some $5 million over the course of the year.
In the court filing, attorneys for the estate’s executors claimed they had “successfully rebuilt and enhanced Michael Jackson’s image, solidified the MJJ business as a significant entity in the entertainment industry, entered into and continue to enter into unprecedented business deals that have produced, and will in the future produce, significant revenues for the Estate.”
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