How on earth can Billie Piper have an estimated debt of "£9 million"?

[Rhoticity]

Just as the title says really - saw this online today.

Billie Piper is said to have an estimated debt of "£9 million" owed to Virgin Records.
The 41-year-old actress-and-singer was signed to Innocent Records, a subsidiary of Virgin Records, in 1998, when she was just 15 years old and released her debut single, 'Because We Want To', on the label.

And the 'Scoop' star - who left her music career behind her in 2003 after an extended break to focus on acting - has revealed she owes the record label a ton of cash and won't be relaunching her music career anytime soon.

Billie told Jessie Ware's 'Table Manners' podcast: "I'm still in debt to Virgin.
"If I ever release an album, which I won't, I'd probably have to pay off that debt. It's like a university debt."

Sharing one of her other pet peeves from her brief stint as a pop star, she said: "You do all these big promotional tours which I absolutely hated. I hated going off."

Does she owe it personally or is it through a company?

Does that mean they can't come after her house/savings etc?

Maybe she signed a 3-album deal or something

I think it means that this is how much they’ve invested in her in terms of promotion and recording etc, and she won’t take a cut from any future earnings until the £9m has been repaid to the label.

Does seem high though.

It will be money they spent on promoting her music, which is charged against notional future earnings from the same. Quite standard in the music industry, although the amount does sound excessive.

Yes it won’t be debt like most people have - more that they get first claim to her earnings due to what they’ve spent on her.

Huge amount though. I guess she was very big and stopped quite suddenly so perhaps they put more money in to her than is standard.

It sounds as though they gave her an advance, so anything she earns in future with that company will be used to pay that debt. It's the same with books.

A lot of musicians and pop stars, particularly if they're young and don't have good representation when they sign record deals, get in massive debt to their record companies for recording and promotional work and have to pay that debt back via sales and performance revenues.

I think it was Robbie Williams who talked about how he and the other members of Take That were basically given pocket money during the 90s - despite making millions for their record company during that time. Some big stars have taken their record companies to court over it - George Michael, Prince, etc. It's well known how unfavourable the terms are for artists and how the record companies and execs get hugely wealthy at the expense of the artists.

Seems a non story to me. It's like she doesn't actually have to pay it unless she releases more music.

I suppose the money the companies make is so they can take risks on artists, but seems a lot?

Who signed the contract? She was 15, so legally not able to contract with anybody. Seems like somebody signed her up to a dud.

I think similar happened to Bros, IIRC.

It's a lot but not uncommon. Recupable expenses can be massive

To give an example of how the record companies screw acts over. Chuck Berrys first record was credited as being written by him and the dj Alan Freed, who he'd never met and who was later convicted for taking bribes, part ownership of songs, % of acts earnings and only playing records which benefited him. The song also had the guy who provided stationery to the record studio as a writer.
Elvis Presleys contract with tom Parker have Parker 50% of Elvis earnings....plus Parker sold the merchandise and didn't fully pay elvis.
It's not unheard of bands/singers to have to pay for the recording time, the cost of pressing, being driven around etc.
One of worst thing is bootleg records...the company's made and sold bootlegs of their own acts just so they didn't have to pay them royalties.

Yes, I was just thinking that. Unlikely to be enforceable against someone who was a minor at the time the contract was entered into.