The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2025

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In 2001, Elvis Presley topped Forbes’ first list tracking the highest-earning celebrity estates, and The King has appeared on every edition of the rankings in the 25 years since, earning over $1.2 billion during that span. Yet it’s another member of music royalty who has truly broken the paradigm for posthumous earnings—Elvis’ onetime son-in-law, Michael Jackson.

The King of Pop’s estate has earned an astonishing $3.5 billion since his death in 2009, according to Forbes estimates, topping this year’s list once again with $105 million in earnings over the past 12 months. “When it comes to estate earnings,” one high-profile estate lawyer tells Forbes, “It’s MJ, then an enormous canyon, then everybody else.”

The biggest paydays came from unwinding assets that Jackson accumulated during his life. In addition to owning his own publishing rights and master recordings, Jackson also purchased the ATV catalog for $47.5 million in 1985—about $142 million today—which included among its nearly 4,000 songs almost every hit written together by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. That investment eventually returned $750 million in 2016 (around $1 billion today) when the estate sold its stake to Sony. Not included in that sale was Jackson’s own publishing and master recordings, but in 2024 his estate sold a 50% stake in those assets to Sony for another $600 million—much to the dismay of Jackson’s mother, Katherine, who said the sale would be against Jackson’s wishes and tried to block the deal in court.

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Because of the global appeal of pop music, and the likelihood that star recording artists receive a higher percentage of residual profits than, say, actors from their catalog of movies or TV shows, musicians once again dominate this year’s list, making up 10 of the top 13, who earned a total of $541 million combined before taxes and fees. Master recordings and publishing rights continue to print millions each year for icons such as Prince, John Lennon and Bob Marley.

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#1. $105 Million
Michael Jackson

#2. $85 Million
Dr. Seuss

#3. $81 Million, #4. $81 Million
Richard Wright, Syd Barrett

#5. $80 Million
The Notorious B.I.G.

#6. $21 Million
Miles Davis

#7. $17 Million
Elvis Presley

#8. $14 Million
Jimmy Buffett

#9. $13 Million
Bob Marley

#10. $12 Million
John Lennon

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