Thursday, December 26, 2013
10 Unexpected Ways Celebrities Made The Bulk Of Their Fortune
Though it’s not uncommon for celebrities to expand their interests or work in different areas of the media, we expect them to have earned the majority of their wealth doing the thing that made them famous in the first place. As you will see, that isn’t always the case.
10Aerosmith Made More Money From Guitar Hero Than Any Album
Photo credit: daigooliva
Aerosmith are rock legends—surely they earned enough money melting faces, shredding guitars, and blowing minds to die age at age 100 crashing their life-sustaining hover-pods into a mountain of cocaine and strippers, right? No, as hard as it to believe, the band’s biggest ever money-earner wasn’t one of their several multi-platinum albums or even their appearance in the Wayne’s World movies—it was from the Guitar Hero: Aerosmithrhythm action game.
The royalties the band earned from the game dwarfed anything they’d ever earned from any of their other albums, concerts, or even their merchandise. Keep in mind, Aerosmith have been playing for three decades. We don’t know if it’s depressing or hilarious that one of the most famous bands on Earth earned more money from letting people pretend to play their music than playing it themselves.
9Kate Moss Makes More Money As She Gets Older
Photo credit: Abu badali
People making money as they age isn’t unheard of. In fact, it’s usually the way the world works. You have to work your way up to the big bucks through years of hard work—unless you’re a model, in which case, it’s almost always the exact opposite. It’s a job where you’re literally paid based on how thin and good-looking you are. It’s not a career where time is your friend.
Apparently, no one has told Kate Moss that, because as she’s gotten older, she’s found herself earning increasingly large amounts for strutting her stuff down the catwalk. At the age of 39, she supposedly earns three times as much money from modeling as she did as a fresh-faced teen, serving as a walking middle finger to everything we know about the fashion industry and life in general. Though other models have remained successful as they’ve grown older, such as Milla Jovovich and Tyra Banks, Moss is still noted as one of the few on the list who is still actively modeling instead of turning her attention to a different career.
850 Cent Is A Savvy Businessmen Who Raps In His Spare Time
Photo credit: Materialscientist
Though known for such lyrical masterpieces as “In Da Club” and “I Got Swag,” Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is stupidly smart and prudent when it comes to investing money. For example, the rapper once made nearly $10 million in a day by using his Twitter followers to buy tons of stock in a company he owned a decent stake in.
Fiddy’s biggest boon by far, though, was Vitaminwater, which earned him a reported $60–80 million when the brand was bought out by Coca-Cola. Today, Mr. Cent is valued at close to $500 million. Of course, a considerable pile of that is from rapping, but a bigger, much dirtier pile is from him just being a business genius.
7Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Wealth Came From Real Estate
Photo credit: Diego Grez
Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of those names that is synonymous with “action hero.” He’s so successful that he didn’t even collect a salary when he was the governor of California. However, Schwarzenegger’s initial wealth didn’t come from film, or even from the dozens of body-building competitions he won prior to convincing Hollywood that actors can speak in heavily-accented monotone. No, it all came from clever investments in real estate.
By carefully and prudently investing the arguably paltry winnings from body-building competitions into exercise equipment and real estate, Schwarzenegger was a millionaire by age 22. Of course, he later earned millions more from his movies, but you could argue he couldn’t have made that money in the first place without the money he made from real estate.
6Sammy Hagar Is Richer Than Everyone In Van Halen—From Tequila
Photo credit: Diego Grez
After replacing David Lee Roth as the lead singer of Van Halen, you’d hope that Sammy Hagar retired with enough money to rock until he died. However, despite a stint as the front man of one of the best known rock groups of all time and penning a few hits as a songwriter before that, Hagar’s wealth has come primarily from one source—tequila.
Hagar is the founder of the Cabo Wabo Tequila brand, which was once almost exclusively served at the restaurants and clubs he owned. That is, until people realized that the tequila was actually good and it began flying off of shelves. In 2007, Hagar sold a whopping 80-percent share of the company for $80 million. He sold the rest a few years later, citing that he was too lazy to be bothered trying to market the brand when he’d already made enough money. In fact, Hagar has made so much money from the deal, his clubs, and his tequila empire that he’s now the single richest member, former or current, of Van Halen.
5 Akon Has Made More Money From Lady Gaga Than His Own Music
Photo credit: All Hip Hop
If you didn’t know that Lady Gaga was first discovered by Akon, we’re sorry for spoiling that with the title of this entry. The story goes that it was Akon who urged his record company to sign Gaga under his own label within the companies umbrella, which the company did, hoping to score a few more albums out of the singer. Little did they know that Gaga’s albums were soon to be more in-demand than Akon’s.
We’re guessing that didn’t bother Akon too much, since Gaga’s fame made him, in his own words, “enough to retire”—and not just “go live in Florida” retire, but “rich rapper living in a giant mansion forever” retire. As Lady Gaga was signed to a part of Interscope Records run by Akon himself, he was entitled to a piece of the million-dollar pie she ended up making.
4Bob Ross Never Earned A Penny From His Paintings Or TV Show
Photo credit: Crtrue
Even though Bob Ross is universally known for his show, The Joy of Painting—as well as his rockin’ fro—he never made any money from either. According to Ross himself, he did the show for free. Even more impressive, he filmed 13 episodes in two days, filming each painting in real time in just under half an hour.
Instead, Ross made the bulk of his wealth from
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Hollywood Florida Rapist on The Loose
Since The Sun Sentinel And The Miami Herald refuse to report this story, I will.
Police in Hollywood Florida have released this composite sketch of a man who they believe raped a 17-year-old girl.
The teen was out walking when she says she was forced into an older gray or gold minivan.
Police say they're looking for a 6-foot-tall, 200-pound man with long dreadlocks.
The victim is being treated by doctors and is receiving rape counseling.
Detectives are asking anyone with information to call the Hollywood Police Department at 954.967.HELP or 954.967.4411.
Tipsters can e-mail or text to hollywoodpdtips@hollywoodfl.org.
Information leading to the identity and arrest of the subject can also be given to Broward Crime Stoppers for a reward at 954.493.TIPS. or www.browardcrimestoppers.org.
So This Explains My Empty Stockings This Year...
My stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there... Damn aliens.
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