This Dead Celebrity Earned More In 2016 Than Any Living Celebrity

At a certain point, the amount of money that a celebrity makes is just a number. However, even the most aloof individual has to admit that $825 million is a pretty big one. That's how many dollars the highest-paid celebrity of 2016 took home. The plot twist? He's not even alive. On Wednesday morning, Forbes announced Michael Jackson as the highest-paid dead celebrity of 2016, earning $750 million after the March sale of his half of the Sony/ATV music publishing catalog, which notably contained The Beatles library. He paid just $47.5 million for the catalog back in 1985, eventually splitting it with Sony ten years later, proving that he's not just the King of Pop, but also the King of Investments. The sale put his total pretax earnings at $825 million, which is the most earned in one year by any celebrity dead or alive. For comparison, the highest-paid celebrities in 2015, like Katy Perry and Floyd Mayweather Jr., made $135 million and $300 million, respectively. Michael Jackson also topped the 2015 list of highest-paid dead celebrities, but with a noticeably "smaller" sum at just $115 million. In fact, he has remarkably continued to earn nine figures every full year after his death. Now that's something to dance about.