Many Dead Celebrities Still Earn Huge Sums of Money

Many celebrities still earn huge amounts of money after they have died. According to ‘The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2024’ by Forbes, the eight highest-paid deceased celebrities earned a combined total of $1.1 billion in the past year.

As the following chart shows, at $600 million, Michael Jackson earned the most posthumously of any celebrity in 2024. Jackson died in 2009 in Los Angeles, California, aged 50, of a cardiac arrest due to a combination of sedatives and an anesthetic, with the coroner’s report finding it to be a homicide. His large wealth is largely due to a judge having ruled that the $600 million catalog sale of his publishing and recorded masters’ rights to Sony could go ahead. On top of this is the continued success of the ongoing Broadway musical and touring productions of ‘MJ: The Musical’.

Queen’s Freddie Mercury is back on the list, having earned an estimated $250 million last year. This was due to Queen’s $1 billion catalog sale to Sony in June, Forbes reports. Mercury died of AIDS in 1991 aged 45. He is followed by Dr. Seuss, the author of famed children’s books The Cat in the Hat and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, who died aged 87 in 1991 and earned $75 million last year. In fourth place comes the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. He died in 1977 from a heart attack, aged 42, and last year earned $50 million.

Other big names to be included on the list are Prince, who died from an overdose in 2016, aged 57, and earned $35 million last year, followed by Reggae legend Bob Marley who died of cancer aged 36 in 1981. Marley’s posthumous income increased in 2024 after the release of his biopic Bob Marley: One Love. Number 8 is Charles M.Schulz, who created the comic strip Peanuts (starring Snoopy), and died in 2000, aged 77, and earned $30 million in the past year.