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This story was originally published on July 31, 2020
Britney Spears has been in the news quite a bit and these days, it’s not about her music or outfit choices. It’s about the pop star’s struggles to escape a 13-year conservatorship that controls her finances and personal decisions. The Free Britney movement aims to raise awareness of the pop star’s lack of rights over her own fortune. One point of contention has been Britney Spears’s net worth. The Star has amassed a fortune of over $350 million throughout her 22-year career, yet court documents show Britney Spears’ net worth is only $59 million.
There is no explanation for the comparatively lower net worth, especially taking into account her various income streams. Britney earned over $100 million from her 4-year Vegas residency alone. So the 2019 conservatorship document filings have left fans baffled about the discrepancy in her net worth.
While we’ve all made financial mistakes in our 20’s, Britney has a team of professionals looking after her money. So why did Britney Spears’s $350 million fortune drop to just $59 million? We’ll take a look at the numbers and what may have contributed to the decline.
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What is Britney Spears’s net worth in 2020?
According to court documents, Britney Spears’ 2020 net worth is $59 million. While that’s a huge sum of money, it’s only a fraction of what she should have in her bank account. Britney Spears has sold over 68 million records since her 1999 debut. She’s gone on seven major concert tours, grossing over $570 million, completed a successful Vegas residence and had lucrative endorsement deals with Pepsi, Candie’s and other high-profile companies.
In total, Britney’s net worth should be well over $350 million. Especially, considering she was earning a million dollars a week back in 2014. So how did she amass this fortune and what exactly happened to it? Let’s dive into the details of Britney Spears’s net worth over time, how much money she earned and what may have happened to it.
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Britney Spears net worth over time
What makes Britney’s current $59 million fortune so odd is that her net worth back in 2001 was already reported to be around $57 million. And while the pop star has spent millions on real estate and a luxury lifestyle over the years, it hardly accounts for the discrepancy.
That is especially true, considering it was reported by Sam Lutfi, Britney’s former friend and self-proclaimed manager, that in 2008 she was earning over $9 million per year in annual royalties alone.
This was Britney’s dark period, when she wasn’t working or actively promoting her acclaimed Blackout CD (which subsequently underperformed on the charts). So it really doesn’t make sense that after 20 years in the business and millions in record and concert ticket sales, she would only have $59 million left.
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How Britney made her fortune
According to MoneyNation, Britney Spears should have amassed a $350 million fortune over the last 22 years. Most of this money comes from record sales, tours, a lucrative perfume line and various other merchandise and endorsement deals. Here’s a breakdown of her earnings:
How much Britney Spears earned from album sales
Taking artist royalties into account, Britney Spears has earned over $68 million from album sales alone.
- Baby One More Time – $25 million
- Oops I Did It Again – $20 million
- Britney – $9 million
- In The Zone – $6 million
- Blackout – $3.1 million
- Circus – $4 million
- Femme Fatal – $803,000
- Britney Jean – $276,000
- Glory – $154,000
How much Britney Spears earned from concerts
Concert tours are big money-makers for artists, especially since album sales have declined in the streaming age. An artist of Britney’s caliber can expect to take in 75% of box office revenue from a concert tour. Taking box office gross into account, Britney’s eight concert tours should have earned her over $418 million.
Factor in 10% in agent fees and another 15% for management, along with 40% in taxes and she should still have well over $100 million left.
- Baby One More Time Tour earnings – $40 million
- Oops I Did It Again Tour earnings – $47 million
- Dream Tour earnings – $60 million
- Onyx Hotel Tour earnings – $36 million
- M+M’s tour earnings –$270,000
- Circus tour earnings – $148 million
- Femme Fatale tour earnings – $59 million
- Piece of Me tour earnings – $42 million
Meanwhile, Britney’s Piece of Me residency earned her over $101,960,000. She did 248 shows in total. For the first 96, she was paid $310,000 per show, bringing in over $29 million. For the remaining 152 shows, Britney earned $475,000 per show. The total earnings? Over $72 million.
Once again, even if she took home a quarter of that amount once her agents and Uncle Sam took their cut, she would have at least $25 million left. That’s a little less than half of her current $59 million net worth. It makes no sense.
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How much Britney Spears earned from her perfumes
Britney has one of the most successful celebrity perfume lines out there. In fact, her brother Bryan Spears recently stated in an interview that Britney’s perfume line generated “$100 billion” in revenue. If Britney had cut a deal for even 1% of the proceeds, she would have earned $1 billion from her perfume line.
However, this number is likely wrong. There have been conflicting reports about Britney’s perfume line earnings, ranging from $50 million per year to $52 million per perfume release. Either way, perfume revenue is almost the same as Britney Spears’s net worth of $59 million in 2020. That just doesn’t add up.
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Other ways Britney Spears earns money
Britney Spears is a corporation, earning millions of dollars from various ventures. She has published four books to date:
- Heart to Heart (May 9, 2000)
- A Mother’s Gift (April 10, 2001)
- Britney Spears’s Crossroads Diary (2002)
- Stages (December 2002)
While I couldn’t find precise earnings for these deals, they are bound to exceed a million dollars.
Britney also had a doll line and put her name on various merchandise over the year, including clothing and accessories.
She also made the 2002 hit Crossroads, which earned $61 million against a $10 million budget. Britney likely got a large chunk of that money, considering what a huge star she was at the time and the touring/recording opportunities she had to forego to make that movie.
There were also guest stints on shows like Will & Grace and How I Met Your Mother that cemented her status as a pop culture icon and probably added a substantial sum to her net worth.
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How much Britney Spears earned from products and sponsorships
Back in 2001, Britney Spears signed a deal with Pepsi. In addition to earning her $8 million, it led to iconic commercials like this one.
Following her highly successful Circus album, Britney signed an endorsement deal with Candie’s and later followed it up with an ad campaign for Kenzo. The numbers for these deals were not published, but I will venture to guess it’s in the millions.
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Why is Britney Spears net worth so low?
While Britney Spears has seemingly earned over $300 million during her career, it’s unclear why her net worth is only $59 million. This question has been brought to the forefront by the Free Britney movement, which claims the pop star’s conservatorship is taking advantage of her. One accusation is that her money managers are squandering her fortune or outright misappropriating it.
While we have yet to see proof either way, it’s interesting that the judge overlooking Britney’s conservatorship has not questioned the star’s dwindling net worth over the years. After all, Britney’s conservators have to file annual reports detailing how much she earned and how the funds were spent.
Despite raking in at least $25 million a year from concert tours and her Vegas residency, court documents showed Britney’s net worth increasing only incrementally between 2008 and 2020.
Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, recently petitioned the court so she would be included in the singer’s future personal and financial matters. Time will tell if Lynne will raise any red flags about the conservatorship’s handling of Britney’s financial matters.
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Britney Spears humble beginnings
Britney Spears grew up in near-poverty in small-town Kentwood, LA. Her mother was a school teacher while her dad worked in construction several hours away. Work fluctuated and due to his drinking problem, James Spears had a hard time maintaining a job. The family was nearly $40,000 in debt and had their car repossessed before Britney hit it big with Baby One More Time.
Today, Britney lives in a $7 million Hidden Hills estate complete with 21 acres of land. And while she is driven in a nice car and made well over $20 million per year as part of her Vegas residency, she is limited to spending just $1,500 per week. While that’s plenty for the average person, it’s quite restrictive for someone with a $59 million fortune.
Britney has paid it forward over the years, buying her mother a $4 million estate in Kentwood, called “Serenity.” The 20-acre property features 6,500 sqft of space and well-manicured gardens. For a brief time, Britney owned a $3 million penthouse in Manhattan where her brother Bryan lived. She is known to be generous to her friends, family and charitable organizations. In 2017, Britney donated $1 million to the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation, which named a campus after her.
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Where did all of Britney Spears’ money go?
We don’t know exactly where all of Britney’s money went, but one thing is for sure: It should be a lot higher than the $59 million reported in her conservatorship filings. Britney has many people managing her finances. Her conservatorship costs her $1 million per year. Her agent gets a 10% cut of her earnings while her manager gets 15% and she has various accountants on the payroll.
While managing a nine-figure fortune can get costly, between the taxes and personnel fees, it doesn’t make sense for Britney Spears to be worth 1/7 of what she earned over the last two decades.She owns one home and doesn’t appear to spend extravagantly. According to court documents, she is on a $1500 weekly budget.
A judge in Britney’s conservatorship case has requested a review of her file, including her finances. But don’t hold your breath just yet – Britney’s conservators recently filed a motion to seal all documents in the conservatorship case. So whatever is discovered, we may never hear about it.
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Is more than clear that they arevstealing from her…
Seems that way.
So the reports to the court document the net worth of the estate under conservatorship. However, in 2004 Britney Spears formed the SJB revocable trust naming herself as the trustee and sole beneficiary. When she became a conservatee, the trust changed hands to the listed temporary co-trustees, Bryan Spears and Ivan Tabeck, Jamie Lynn Spears was appointed as the trustee in 2018. The SJB revocable trust is not included in the estate reporting because her conservators do not control it. No one can say what the value of the trust is, but Britney moved all of her assets into it in 2004 to be managed and reinvested. Based on an image I saw documenting assets on hand as of Jan 1, 2010, she earned $11,253,989.63 in investment interest from her trust assets (one of which is her touring company). Assuming they were using a 2.45% annual interest rate, the principal of the trust would be $459,346,515.51. I can’t say with any certainty if those numbers are accurate without seeing the full documents, but it seems right in the ballpark of what would be expected accounting not only for the missing earned income (notice the money nation chart starts diverging in 2004 after the trust was created), but it would account for a greater diversity of assets that you’d expect to see with this much wealth.
This is very insightful. Thank you for sharing.
I haven’t seen the accounting for the court but why wouldn’t the SJB Trust be included in the court accounting? It should have been because due to the conservatorship Britney as you detailed above was removed as trustee by the conservators. Yes, Jamie Lynn Spears was appointed as the trustee in 2018 and shortly after that time Jaime wanted and/or moved the SJB Trust to Stonebridge a financial advisor firm owned and controlled by Lou Taylor. Since Stonebridge is a registered investment advisor with the SEC they are required to report how much client money they handle. In that time, period Stonebridge reported a $600M jump of client money. It’s suspicious that Britney’s most valuable asset which is also controlled by the Conservators doesn’t appear in the accounting filed with the court by the Conservators. Lou Taylor who has managed to remain virtually unknown while having her hands in every aspect of Britney’s Conservatorship this includes the court accounting. However, all this done in such a manner that it appears that all Conservators are unrelated. Finally, one year after the trust was moved to Stonebridge Lou Taylor resigned as Britney’s manager. Coincidence? I think not!
Not to mention judging on X Factor which I think was $15 million for a season
Her Fathers a POS & they need to leave this kid alone
The courts should be suited, because they were to watch over her money. So sad,she would have did better for herself , w h ile she was out of her mine
So many people let her down.
She also owned a restaurant in NYC at one point.
NYLA. It failed pretty quickly. More poor investing advice from the people around her.
I’m wondering if Britney was a male if anyone would do that! I’m not comparing artists or talent… I’ve always loved Michael Jackson… but do you remember how broke he was before he died? And how many scandals he was into? Oh boy.. that lovely “boy” had issues!!!! And as much as his father tried, nobody ever managed to take over his finances…. Awesome, isn’t it?
It’s 100% driven by her being female. Every man in her life has tried to control and infantilize her. Even her makeup artist from back in the day said she wasn’t surprised by Britney’s breakdown – her management were overworking her and she would have “mini break-downs” asking for time off. They would manipulate her constantly to keep the money train going. Meanwhile you have men like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, James Franco behaving abhorrently and being hailed genuises.
Kanye has a mental health break on stage and no one is putting him in a conservatorship. It’s gross the way women are treated. Especially when they begin to exert their power and refuse to cower to males.