Katy Perry Is Richer Than We All Thought
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00:00Katy Perry is richer than we all thought.
00:02Katy Perry has soared from singing gospel music in her parents' church all the way to space,
00:07racking up far more zeros in her bank account than most people realize.
00:16Once upon a time, she was a Santa Barbara pastor's daughter sneaking borrowed pop CDs.
00:21Her upbringing in the Christian home restricted her listening solely to Christian music.
00:26Fast forward to 2025, and the California girls icon is sitting on a jaw-dropping estimated net worth of $400 million,
00:34which blows away fans who remember her humble,
00:37I can't even sell 200 copies of my first album Beginnings.
00:40I swear I wanted to be like the Amy Grant of music, but it didn't work out.
00:45A major reason for her insane fortune, Katy's approach to business would make a Wall Street pro applaud.
00:50She pulled a power move in September 2023 when she sold her song catalog to Litmus Music for a hefty $225 million.
00:58That single deal alone catapulted her net worth into the stratosphere.
01:03Add in the fact that her tours are absolute moneymakers, like the Prismatic World Tour,
01:07which raked in over $204 million and sold nearly 2 million tickets, and you see how she's kept the cash rolling.
01:12Between 2009 and 2014, she consistently banked $30 to $50 million each year from album sales, tour revenue, and endorsements.
01:23Then there's American Idol.
01:24She started on the judges panel at $15 million per season in 2018, but that figure quickly jumped to $25 million by the following year.
01:32During just one 12-month stretch from June 2019 to June 2020, Katy pulled in $40 million, and a whopping $25 million of that came straight from TV appearances,
01:45basically getting paid to hand out critiques to aspiring singers.
01:48Not a bad gig if you can get it.
01:50And let's not forget her wild peak year between June 2014 and June 2015, when she raked in an estimated $135 million before taxes.
02:01Most of us can't even wrap our minds around that level of money.
02:05Katy Perry doesn't rely on music and TV alone.
02:08She has a big love for real estate, too.
02:10She's owned a string of fancy properties in California that would put most realtors to shame.
02:15In 2017, she dropped $19 million on a Beverly Hills mansion, only to sell it in 2022 for $18 million.
02:24Sure, she lost a million, but for her, that's almost a rounding error.
02:28She shelled out $7.5 million for another Beverly Hills home in 2018, briefly listed it at $8 million a couple of years later, and then kept on shopping.
02:39Then came the infamous convent fiasco.
02:42Yes, she literally tried to buy an 8.5-acre Los Angeles convent in 2014 for $14.5 million, but the resident nuns had a different buyer in mind.
02:53The legal drama got so crazy that one nun tragically passed away in court during the dispute.
03:00A judge sided with Katy, but her option to purchase the property ran out in 2019, so she never did become the proud owner of a piece of holy real estate.
03:08Nevertheless, she's continued her real estate spree elsewhere, including a $15 million Montecito mansion she bought with fiancé Orlando Bloom in 2020,
03:17which then devolved into another legal tangle when the seller insisted he was under the influence of pain meds and didn't fully understand the deal.
03:24A judge again took Katy's side. No big deal.
03:28She also snagged a second place in Montecito for $14.2 million on nine acres, breezily named Villa de la Vista.
03:35Talk about living large. So how does she stack up against other top-earning female musicians?
03:42As of 2024, she's at the eighth spot in the ranking of wealthiest women in music, trailing behind queen pins like Rihanna, who's minted from her Fenty Beauty empire,
03:52and Madonna and Celine Dion, whose decades-long careers keep their bank balances sky high.
03:57Taylor Swift lurks in the same bracket, thanks to her monster tours and re-recorded albums,
04:02while Beyoncé's fresh off her profitable renaissance track.
04:06It's an elite circle where net worths rocket into the hundreds of millions.
04:10And then, in 2023, selling her catalog for $225 million practically wrote the book on how to profit from your own artistry.
04:20Even though touring remains a cash cow, she's proof you don't have to wait for ticket sales to roll in.
04:25Every realm she dips into – music, real estate, TV deals, or brand partnerships – seems to yield big bucks,
04:33cementing her status as not just a pop star, but a serious businesswoman.