No matter how successful they get, rappers, reality stars,
actors, and even bounty hunters can still wind up struggling financially. Whether it was due to bad
investments or harmful behavior, these are the stars that once had it all and lost everything.
In the '90s and early 2000s, R. Kelly was flying high. He regularly released charting tracks,
and earned the top position on Billboard's 2010 list of the top 50 R&B and hip-hop
artists of the last 25 years. By then, the singer had sold over 30 million records,
but was already experiencing some serious financial woes.
Kelly's lavish purchases included a Chicago mansion once valued at $5.2 million. However,
after he quit making mortgage payments, NBC Chicago reports that it was sold for a fraction
of that price in a 2013 foreclosure auction. A year prior, TMZ had reported that Kelly owed over
$6 million in back taxes. Among the many shocking revelations that came out in Kelly's 2018 song,
"I Admit," he actually claimed this amount eventually ballooned to $20 million.
In 2019, The Blast reported that he was left with just over $600
in his bank accounts after his funds were seized to satisfy a
judgment awarding one of his former landlords $173,000 in unpaid rent.
Of course, money wasn't the worst of Kelly's problems by far. In 2022,
he was handed a 30-year prison sentence for racketeering and sex trafficking charges. At
the time of this video, Celebrity Net Worth lists his net worth as negative $2 million.
Jon and Kate Gosselin earned themselves a prominent spot in
TLC's cabinet of curiosities when they added sextuplets to their family of
four. In a 2009 appearance on Larry King Live, Jon told CNN host Larry King that
they had been getting paid $22,500 per episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8.
However, Kate really hit the jackpot after the couple's 2009 divorce when their show
was rebranded to Kate Plus 8. For wrangling the kids without Jon's help on the show,
she reportedly received $250,000 an episode.
Kate reportedly began spending big on her appearance, with stylist Ted Gibson telling Radar
that she got hair extensions worth $7,000 in 2010. At one point, Kate's net worth was estimated to be
around $5 million. Then in 2013, Kate told People she was struggling with financial insecurity.
She wasn't filming Kate Plus 8 at the time, and returning to her former career as a
nurse was not an option because she would need to spend too much money on childcare.
"I use coupons, we don't wear the top brands."
Kate Gosselin got to cling to her reality fame a little longer when TLC resumed filming Kate Plus
8, but that chapter ended for good in 2017. In 2022, The U.S. Sun obtained legal documents in
which Kate admitted to taking $100,000 from her children's trust fund. She explained,
"I will have to keep borrowing from it to survive."
That same year, the Daily Mail reported that she had, indeed, resumed working as a nurse.
Amber Heard should have been riding a wave of success after joining the DCEU as
Aquaman character Mera. However, during Heard and Johnny Depp's 2022 defamation trial, ex-producer
Kathryn Arnold testified that Heard only got paid $2 million for her role in Aquaman 2.
Arnold also testified that comments by Depp's attorney had severely damaged Heard's reputation,
costing her up to $50 million in potential future income over a five-year period.
After jurors awarded Depp over $10 million, Heard appealed the case. However, according to The Daily
Beast, Depp accepted a $1 million out-of-court settlement to avert another costly legal fight.
While this was a great deal less than the original judgment, it still proved a lofty sum for Heard to
come up with. In June 2022, sources told the New York Post that she was allegedly broke
after overspending to maintain her Hollywood lifestyle and paying her hefty legal fees.
TMZ reports that Heard sold her Yucca Valley home for a little over $1 million that July,
and as of summer 2023, Celebrity Net Worth estimates the value of her assets to be around
$500,000. The actor has since decided to get a fresh start in Spain,
where the cost of living is over 40% lower than that of the United States.
We don't know what Duane Chapman was paid for chasing down fugitives on his series,
Dog the Bounty Hunter, but fellow A&E star Dave Hester revealed to Entertainment Weekly that
he earned roughly $25,000 per episode in the time he spent on Storage Wars.
Chapman filmed 139 episodes of his popular reality show, and also appeared alongside
his wife, Beth Chapman, in a CMT spinoff series titled Dog and Beth: On the Hunt.
In 2009, the couple purchased a six-bedroom home in Colorado for
$750,000. They expanded their property portfolio in 2015 with the acquisition
of a $2.2 million home in Hawaii. However, in 2018, the Chapmans were sued when they
stopped making payments on their Hawaii property, according to The U.S. Sun.
After Beth's 2019 death, Duane told The New York Times he was out of money, attributing his
financial issues to a combination of medical debt and fathering over a dozen children.
Duane Chapman feared losing his Colorado property,
but managed to hang onto it until 2022. That year, The New York Post reported
that he sold it for around $1.6 million before moving to Florida with his new wife.
That same year, The U.S. Sun reported that Chapman also owed $1.6 million in
back taxes. While the bounty hunter claims he's working hard to offset his financial struggles,
his employment opportunities seem to have become more limited. After receiving backlash for the
use of racist and homophobic slurs publically, his next series, Dog Unleashed, was scrapped.
"Well, I thought I had a pass in the black tribe to use it, kinda like Eminem."
On the internet, Jocelyn Wildenstein's likeness is ubiquitous, thanks to the surgical procedures
that have earned her the nickname "Catwoman." However, this isn't her only claim to fame. As
Washington Monthly recalls, in 1997, the socialite made headlines for claiming that her wealthy ex,
Alec Wildenstein, threatened her with a gun after she caught him cheating on her.
Alec was an art dealer whose family owns works by the likes of Van Gogh,
Rembrandt, Picasso, and Monet. While married to Alec, Jocelyn had a chauffeur, chambermaid,
butler, personal assistant, and chef. The Guardian reports that she also accrued a
$10 million jewelry collection, including a number of pieces inspired by big cats.
Jocelyn was able to continue living the lavish lifestyle she was used to, thanks to a $2.5
billion divorce settlement and annual payments of $100 million from Alec. However, Alec died in
2008, and Jocelyn said that his family cut her off from her only source of income in 2015. She had
to file for bankruptcy three years later, and was ultimately forced to vacate her Trump Tower digs.
In a 2023 interview with The Telegraph, Jocelyn said that she agreed to appear in
an HBO documentary because she was unhappy with her late ex's family's decision to end
her cash flow. While she still had no income, she did have a designer fiancé,
Lloyd Klein, who expressed his hope that her story would one day be turned into a movie.
Armie Hammer comes from wealth, but his family didn't make their fortune in baking soda.
"Does anyone not understand that reference?"
"Yeah."
Forbes reports that his great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, was an oil tycoon whose
estimated net worth was around $200 million in the years leading to his 1990 death.
Armie set out to make his own fortune in Hollywood, landing roles in movies
including The Social Network, J. Edgar, The Lone Ranger, and Call Me by Your Name. By 2019,
Celebrity Net Worth estimated that he'd built a fortune of $16 million.
Then, in 2021, multiple women came out of the woodwork to make some serious
accusations against the actor. It started with a woman named Effie, who alleged that
he had raped and physically assaulted her, according to USA Today. Other women shared
screenshots of messages describing cannibalistic fantasies that were purportedly from Hammer.
Effie ultimately lost her criminal case against Armie because there wasn't enough
evidence to bring charges against the actor, but his career still hit the
skids. He was dropped from the movies Shotgun Wedding, The Offer, and Billion Dollar Spy.
By 2022, he had found work elsewhere, with People
reporting that he had become a timeshare salesman in the Caymans. As one source alleged,
"His dad won't help him anymore and he's been cut off, so he got to work."
Like his career, his net worth took a massive hit and now sits at about $100,000 as of August 2023.
With roles in beloved classics like Jaws, American Graffiti, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
you'd think Richard Dreyfuss would have it made in the shade. However,
the Oscar-winning actor hasn't been spending his golden years relaxing on a beach.
Instead, he found himself back in the ocean when he joined the cast of the
2006 movie Poseidon. When asked why he decided to do the film, he told MovieWeb,
"Money! Big surprise, they offered like a lot of money and I love money
and didn't have a lot and I thought this is a good way of doing this."
Dreyfuss attempted to retire after that shoot, and spent some time studying civics at Oxford.
In 2016, he told the Daily Mail that he had resumed acting because he was, quote,
"broke." He elaborated that throughout his life he's been a fairly frivolous spender,
and that habit was now resulting in some pretty serious financial consequences.
Two years later, retirement was still proving
elusive for the actor. He told The Daily Telegraph,
"I am going to do it until I don't have to and hopefully I will find some other
sources of income. I am writing and teaching, maybe that will be a way."
However, his efforts have thus far proved futile. As of August 2023,
he has six upcoming projects listed on his IMDb page alone.
As a member of the British pop group S Club 7, Hannah Spearritt contributed to
three platinum records and won two Brit Awards. Even so, according to the Mirror,
her parents decided to take the group's manager, Spice Girls mastermind Simon Fuller,
to court in 2003 because Spearritt was getting paid a pittance compared to what he was pocketing.
Fuller's earnings were reportedly around €75 million, while Spearritt
and her bandmates were given annual payments of €150,000 each. What's more,
Spearitt's father elaborated that band members usually had to fight to get paid at all.
After the group split up that same year, Spearritt decided to pivot to acting,
landing roles in the 2004 horror movie Seed of Chucky and the television series Primeval.
"It was amazing, and I enjoyed the ride. I did, in my heart and soul, always want to be an actress."
While Spearritt earned a great deal more than the average Brit as a pop star,
it wasn't nearly enough to keep her living comfortably for years to come. In fact,
she told The Sun that she and her family even found themselves homeless during the holidays
in 2022. They were given two months' notice to vacate their London home, but Spearritt recalled,
"Our landlord needed the money and the property sold so fast.
We ended up with under two days to leave."
Because short-term rentals were so expensive, the family wound up living in a pal's office
before moving between multiple other temporary residences. At the time, Spearritt and her
partner were working toward opening a cafe that would hopefully help them get back on their feet.
Blac Chyna shares a child with a member of one of reality television's wealthiest families,
but in a now-deleted 2022 tweet, the model and music video star complained
that Rob Kardashian wasn't paying child support.
She also said that she had to sell three of her vehicles because she
was so financially strapped. However, in the comments section of The Shade Room's
Instagram post about her claim, Kardashian wrote,
"I pay 37k a year for my daughter's school. I handle every single medical expense. I pay
for all her extracurricular activities. I have my
daughter from Tuesday-Saturday. Why would I pay child support."
In another attempt to get some cash from the Kardashians, Chyna also took the family to
court for defamation. In the $108 million suit, she accused them of successfully
getting one of her sources of income, the Rob & Chyna reality series, terminated.
In June 2022, TMZ reported that the Kardashians were seeking to recover their litigation costs
from Chyna, which came to around $390,000, in addition to their attorney's fees. Chyna's lawyer
told the outlet that coughing up that kind of cash would "financially ruin" the model.
In a 2023 interview with TikTok star Mister Lewis, Chyna described herself as a broke business
owner and entrepreneur, revealing that she had just $3,000 in her checking account. However,
she did say that she owned her $3.8 million home, so she's not completely void of valuable assets.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault,
help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network
website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).