MICHAEL JACKSON: $60 million
There aren’t many living entertainers capable of clocking nine figures in a single year, but Michael Jackson has done it eight times since his 2009 death. Most recently, he tallied an estimated $400 million pretax in 2018, bringing his postmortem total to $2.4 billion.
Jackson’s streaming surged, despite recent controversy: 2.1 billion U.S. spins, up from 1.8 billion a year ago. With proceeds flowing from his Mijac Music catalog, a Las Vegas show and a long-term deal with Sony, he retains his postmortem cash crown for the seventh consecutive year, according to Forbes.
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His number has tumbled to $60 million in this year and he is still No. 1 on the list of top-earning dead celebrities.
