How do seemingly minor celebs afford lavish lifestyles?

[likemindedarseholes]

Reading a Heat magazine and James (formally of Busted) mentioned living in the Hollywood hills. Also these 'Cribs' style programmes where someone who had one hit or was in one reality show has a great looking house... what's the secret?
Are they rented houses? Did James from Busted invest well? And how do people like Katie Price spend it all, she must have made loads with all the books, perfumes, tv shows? How??

A lot of the TOWIE / Love Island lot are drug dealers. Mike and Lewis were jailed recently.

Amy invested in property well from the get go and will have a steady income from that.

I know someone who was on a low rent reality show and gained a significant Insta following. All range rovers and designer clothes, tiny bikinis and flash dinners....girl was living in a 2 bed HA flat...nothing flash about her real life.

My friend is a recognizable actor and model, he told me that the first thing his agent said when he started earning big was "buy a house...then buy more"

I was in LA a few years back and thought the Hollywood hills looked amazing and thought it would be multi-millionaire status.

Ok, a touch more than a 1-bed ex-LA in Preston - but not far off a “family home” in London!

Especially if your taste is more Brittany Murphy 3-bed than Hadid mega-mansion.

A few years back I saw a story online about Jake Quickendens massive luxury house, nice pedigree Staffy doggo and his Ducati parked up indoors. He was wearing a very sharp suit too. In fairness to Jake he wasn't making it all out to be his stuff, but the article did and all the photos were lifted from his Instagram.

It was his (then) girlfriend's parents' place, her dad being a former world champion racer going by the name of Carl Fogarty. There weren't many photos of the (very nice but much smaller) terraced house where he actually lived.

You seem a little ignorant and misinformed, OP.

Please learn to distinguish between recording artists who sing other people's songs, musicians who write and record their own music and reality TV stars. They are not the same thing.

Wasn't year 3000 re released by the Jonas Brothers? It's been all over Tiktok too, I'm sure he's earning a nice little sum off that alone.

Google "Dubai porta potty" and you'll be blown away by how some if them do it!!

@likemindedarseholes

Help me out with James from Busted then. Not mega famous, I don't think they were the songwriters. Hollywood hills is pretty exclusive, if selling sunset is to be believed.

James is a song writer, he didn’t write any of the busted songs but now he is a song writer

I understand your question, but I would say James from.busted was quite successful, and was making music just before steaming changed the music business.

Maybe we should be asking about some reality TV stars instead?

Loads of it is smoke and mirrors. So for towie stars, you get enough money to buy a small house outright. Then you get pap photos near big houses, with fake designer stuff and it just perpetuates the look and you can make more money from magazine articles etc. Also lots of lying. The thing that I think is do they just get used to and start believing their own fake hype

I wish I hadn’t googled “Dubai porta potty”

As pp said, there’s people with talent who have invested well, networked, took opportunities (and risk), and it’s paid off for them career wise and financially.

Then there are reality TV stars others who portray a life of extravagance which is smoke and mirrors.

I have no idea who the people discussed on this thread are or any interest in reading about them. However, every time I drive along suburban roads lined with terraces and semis and see the range rovers and German SUVs on the drives I think exactly the same.

I don't think James is working in Dubai.

Property investment must support a lot of them. Onlyfans seems to be a way for newer celebs to make a few bob. I spend too much time reading tattle.

I was reading about Tony from East 17. He invested in property as soon as he could which has helped with his fortune where say like Brian Harvey spent his on his life style. Saying that though think Tony wrote a lot of the songs so probably gets more royalties now.

I know some minor celebrities and they do have lovely houses and lifestyles. They just get paid insane amounts for the bits of work they do or are living off the money they made when they had tv work. It’s not an easy life, you never know when it’ll dry up and you’re constantly on at your manager to help them get more appearances in the media to stay in the public eye

James has a net worth of $1.5 million.

In the music industry owning the song rights is the wealth generator. I remember seeing an interview with Dolly Parton, she told a story about when she was an aspiring singer and Elvis Presley wanted to sing Jolene, but his management would only do it, if she signed over the rights of the song to them. Even though she was broke and unknown said no. In typical Dolly style she said "I did alright".

Most people would not recognise Diane Warren (me included) but she has a net worth of over $100 million from her song writing. She has never performed once.

The Hollywood Hills is a pretty big area and there are the really fancy bits of it, where all the houses are worth multiple millions of dollars, and then there are the quiet residential streets where ordinary people live. A friend of ours has lived there for years and his home is quite modest and almost certainly worth no more than our house is.

You can always rent a place, even a really fancy home, for a day's photo shoot and what's to stop you flying into LA, having a photo shoot for a day, and flying back to your 1-bed flat in Essex?

You could have just done a little bit of research if you were so interested in James Bourne. He did actually write a lot of Busted’s songs, he’s also got writing credits for The Saturdays, McFly, Mel C, MC Lars, Pixi Lott, 5 Seconds of Summer, The Vamps and many more. He’s been commissioned to write musicals, and given his work with Busted and McBusted it’s not as if he’s just sailed into a massive Hollywood mansion just from singing on a couple of songs. Also these “net worth” websites are totally incorrect and misleading.

@CaMePlaitPas

Wasn't year 3000 re released by the Jonas Brothers? It's been all over Tiktok too, I'm sure he's earning a nice little sum off that alone.

Yes, the one who's married to Emma Willis said in a concert I went to that the Jonas Brothers effectively paid off his mortgage!

While Busted might not have been mainstream famous for long, they've been prominent in the alternative/skate scene for much longer and their songs are used in films, adverts etc so that means royalties. Plus songwriting/consultancy/anything ongoing.

For any celebrity, their public image and their actual net worth/business acumen can be completely at odds with each other.

Apparently successful person, never out of the public eye, has visibly lavish lifestyle. It could be that they have the income, good contracts for royalties, have made investments etc that means they can spend like this forever and never run out of money.

Or it could be that they don't have such a good contract, they don't put aside money for tax, their fame starts to wane, they keep spending on cars, houses, day trips to Dubai, father children all over the place, whatever, and they run out of money very fast, can't pay the taxman and end up bankrupt.

Or it could be that they're apparently 'not very famous' but they have a 'one hit wonder' but have a contract that makes them a significant ongoing income, which they then invest in other things that makes them more money (property, stocks and shares, other businesses, apps, whatever) that means they are set for life.

Unless you're their accountant, manager or close friends/family, you're probably not going to know the truth, as there's endless bullshit reported in the media/online.

A lot of the lesser known reality tv stars, especially the young pretty ones (male and female) won’t be a stranger to yachting and Dubai “holidays”

I was reading about Tony from East 17. He invested in property as soon as he could which has helped with his fortune where say like Brian Harvey spent his on his life style. Saying that though think Tony wrote a lot of the songs so probably gets more royalties now.

He wrote a hit and released it at Christmas (it's not a christmas song) that must have been the bulk of the royalties? I'm not sure any of their other stuff is played regularly (although I've no idea what happens on tiktok - I've been surprised at some of the songs my DD knows because they've been on tiktok)

You'd be amazed how much money is drifting around. I have a friend who was in a beer advert a few years ago. Pretty minor thing but because it was shown in a few countries etc, it basically bought her house. One ad.

These people can often buy a pretty amazing house when they are at their peak, then for the next few years they get gifted a lot of stuff and paid 50k here and there for odd appearances, they often have multiple sources of revenue.

Someone like the busted guy will be getting:
Songwriting income
Performing income
Investment income
Freebies/sponsorship
Advertising money for tagging stuff on social media etc

Quite often they have a partner earning a surprising amount too.

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem

Google "Dubai porta potty" and you'll be blown away by how some if them do it!!

As I’d no clue I googled. I’m so revolted I feel like throwing up. Animals.

George Michael included Andrew Ridgley in the writing credits of one of their hugely famous songs. He said he did it so Andrew Ridgley would be financially okay for life. Everytime that song is played or used in any way ,AR gets a royalty payment. Noddy Holder (of Slade) makes at least a million pounds every Christmas from a song he wrote years and years ago ( It's Christmaaaaaaaaaaas). Presumably the man from Busted has written songs for other people who have made them a hit. He will be paid each time its played.