Showbiz can be a fickle beast.
One day, you're hot.
The next?
You're desperately struggling to find work.
So it's not too surprising that so many celebrities have managed to lose their millions, even
if they're still actively working.
Here are some celebs who went broke in 2019.
Money troubles are nothing new for Toni Braxton.
According to ABC News, the "Unbreak My Heart" singer filed for bankruptcy twice, once in
1998 and once in 2010, and even considered posing for Playboy to help alleviate her debts.
Nearly a decade later, it seems Braxton was having financial issues once again.
According to The Blast, the State of California and federal government filed four tax liens
against Braxton in 2018, the same year she released her ninth studio album.
The star reportedly owed more than $780,000 in back taxes from 2015 and 2016, but her
issues definitely didn't end there.
During her split from Birdman in 2019, E! News reported that the IRS and the State of
California filed additional liens because Braxton supposedly owed nearly half a million
dollars in back taxes from 2017.
Although it looks like she'll be kicking off 2020 with some serious debt, at least Braxton
can count on the money she makes from reality TV.
Despite a brief hiatus over contract woes in 2018, Braxton Family Values was back on
WeTV for another season in 2019.
"Family therapy was a major wake-up call…"
"All you do is TALK OVER PEOPLE!?"
"DON'T come for me!"
"WATCH it!"
"This is a hotbed of crazy!"
"I'm.
Tired."
According to TMZ, Braxton and her sisters are reportedly contracted throughout Season
9, so hopefully that'll help unbreak the star's unfortunate financial situation.
And now let's now check in with Dorit Kemsley and her never-not bizarre accent.
"I'm just not buying it.
Snooty?
A bit.
Cold?
Frigid?
Yes."
Sadly, it seems like Kemsley's not buying much of anything these days.
She definitely seemed to be in bad financial shape when she appeared on Million Dollar
Listing: L.A. in January 2019, where she attempted to sell her mansion after shaving $4 million
off the price.
So, what exactly is going on with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star's finances?
It appears that her husband Paul "PK" Kemsley is in hot water.
According to The Blast, PK was sued by a man named Nico Kirzis in 2016, who hoped to recover
a $1.2 million loan he gave the reality TV husband in 2011.
A judge ultimately ordered PK to repay the loan plus interest, but he was already reportedly
struggling to pay a $3.6 million casino marker to The Bellagio.
Even though the amount owed was reduced in a settlement between the two parties, PK reportedly
still failed to make payments.
In June 2019, Kirzis tried to seize PK's assets and successfully took nearly $30,000 from
an account shared by Dorit and her husband.
And according to Us Weekly, that was after the pair's bank account was reportedly frozen.
The tabloid also reported that Dorit was sent to mediation with her former business partner,
Ryan Horne, after she allegedly failed to pay back a $205,000 loan he gave her to launch
her swimwear line.
The case will go to trial in 2020 if it's still unresolved.
R. Kelly's 2019 was a train wreck, as anyone who saw Lifetime's Surviving R. Kelly can
attest, and that's to say nothing of his unbelievable meltdown during a CBS News interview.
In July 2019, the star was arrested on 18 federal counts, including kidnapping, forced
labor, and other unspeakable crimes.
Kelly has pleaded not guilty to the various charges, but the "Ignition" singer's legal
troubles have reportedly left him destitute.
According to NBC News, Kelly was unable to post his $100,000 bail when he was arrested
in February 2019.
According to Kelly's attorney, his finances were, quote, "a mess."
He was jailed again in March 2019 because he couldn't pay $161,000 in back child support,
telling CBS News:
"So many people have been stealing my money.
People was connected to my account."
Elsewhere in the wildly uncomfortable interview, he screamed,
"How can I pay child support?
How?
If my ex-wife is destroying my name and I can't work?"
At one point, Chris Soules was one of the richest people to have ever appeared on The
Bachelor.
According to Money, the star was thought to have been worth about $1.5 million, but then,
tragedy struck.
As of the making of this video, the reality star's estimated net worth has allegedly shrunk
to just $500,000.
As People reports, Soules was arrested in 2017 for leaving the scene of an accident
after rear-ending a tractor, killing 66-year-old Vietnam veteran Kenny Mosher.
"I was driving down a rural road, a country road, in the dark and the next thing I know,
I'm basically coming to."
The Bachelor alum ended up taking a conditional guilty plea for the aggravated misdemeanor
charge, which carried a maximum fine of $6,250.
Whether or not Soules has to pay the fine is up in the air, because the sentencing has
been delayed, according to USA Today.
Unfortunately for Soules, the wrongful death case, which was settled in May 2019, has been
a lot more expensive.
According to the Daily Mail, Soules and his parents were required to pay $2.5 million
to the Mosher family as part of the settlement.
That sum is easily large enough to bankrupt the former reality star.
At one point in her career, Clueless star Stacey Dash was reportedly worth $8 million...
but it appears her net worth is a whole lot lower than that these days.
"Well, there goes your social life."
In September 2019, Dash was arrested for alleged domestic violence.
According to TMZ, she reportedly called 911 and claimed she was being assaulted by her
husband, Jeffrey Marty.
Police showed up to her home and arrested the actress after they found scratches on
Marty's left arm.
The tabloid reported that,
"A source close to Dash [told] TMZ she acted in self-defense."
As Dash prepared to fight her misdemeanor domestic violence charge, she reportedly filed
legal documents asking for a public defender.
According to TMZ, a judge approved the request in the event of charges being filed, but wanted
to see proof of financial need.
It's not too surprising to hear that Dash has been suffering from financial hardship.
Most recently, the star has become better known for her role in Sharknado 4 than anything
else, and her recent output hasn't exactly been prolific.
Nonetheless, it seems like she's turning things around: She has some new projects slated for
2020.
While he's still reportedly worth a massive amount of money, Harvey Weinstein's net worth
has tanked in the wake of numerous allegations and criminal charges.
The New York Times reported in May 2019,
"[Weinstein] is facing criminal charges in New York for allegations...against two women."
He has, in fact, been accused of wrongdoing by more than eighty women.
In May 2019, he finally sought to settle the connecting lawsuits brought on by his accusers
and the New York State attorney general with a tentative $44 million deal.
According to Page Six, Weinstein reportedly lost $15 to $20 million in his divorce to
Georgina Chapman in 2018.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that Weinstein was ousted from his namesake studio, The Weinstein
Group has faced serious financial hardship in the wake of the allegations against the
disgraced movie mogul.
As The New York Times reports, the Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and was
looking to liquidate its assets prior to the producer's $44 million settlement.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Weinstein's fortune has shrunk by $250 million since the
peak of his career.
Rose McGowan was among the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of misconduct,
and twenty years later, she pushed herself to the forefront of the #MeToo movement.
"For someone who's never met Harvey Weinstein, how would you describe him?"
"He's a monster.
He looks like a monster and he is a monster."
Unfortunately, the star's bravery has had a serious impact on her finances.
She told The Guardian in July 2019,
“I miss performing.
But my career was stolen.”
Elsewhere in the same 2019 interview, she points out,
"I've been called one of the first to speak out.
No.
I was the first.
I called The New York Times.
I blew it wide open, not them.
They won the Pulitzer and I'm the one hard-up for money.
It's disgusting.
I was kind of grossed out by how much they enjoyed being lauded."
Ultimately, McGowan's legal battle put her in dire financial straits in 2018.
Entertainment Weekly quotes her as saying,
“It’s really scary, I’m having to sell my house right now to pay legal bills fighting
off the monsters.”
McGowan currently has an estimated net worth of $6 million.
Melanie "Mel B" Brown was once resting on an 80 million pound fortune, the equivalent
to approximately 105 million dollars.
But Brown's Spice Girls fortune reportedly dissipated after her second marriage ended.
In her 2018 memoir, Brutally Honest, Brown outlined how second husband Stephen Belafonte
reportedly took control of her finances and verbally and emotionally abused her for a
decade.
She writes,
"I became a woman who didn’t have her own computer, didn’t drive herself, didn’t
know her bank details, didn’t make decisions.”
"Abuse is unacceptable and I lived it for ten years with my abuser, my then-husband."
When Brown finally left Belafonte and the glamorous homes they shared together in 2017,
she reportedly only had 800 pounds to her name, approximately $1,055.
Nevertheless, according to Page Six, Scary Spice was ordered to pay her ex $5,000 a month
for child support and $350,000 for Belafonte's legal fees when their divorce was finalized.
To make matters worse, the pair already owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS,
according to The Blast.
And it looks like her situation got even worse in 2019.
According to the Mirror, Brown's August book tour was set to lose 57,000 pounds in unsold
tickets, or approximately $75,500.
According to an August 2019 report in The Daily Mail,
"Mel B has claimed she is unemployed and her steady money stream has dried up as she battles
her ex-husband Stephen Belafonte over child support, according to court documents."
The tabloid also reported that Brown was seeking a child support reduction because she had
a monthly salary of just $3,747.
Of course, that barely put a dent in her monthly expenses of over $120,000.
At one point, Celebrity Big Brother winner Katie Price was reportedly worth more than
40 million pounds, that's approximately $52 million.
But in November 2019, she was declared bankrupt.
It's unclear exactly how Price blew through her fortune.
According to BBC News, things have been difficult for the reality star in recent years.
She was convicted of drunk driving, admitted to verbally abusing her ex-husband's new partner,
and presumably had a large chunk of her income slashed after she was banned from promoting
diet products on Instagram by the Advertising Standards Authority.
Nevertheless, we highly doubt we've seen the last of her.
In fact, we fully expect her to stomp through any number of reality shows in the years to
come.
Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash was once worth a whopping $50 million, according
to Celebrity Net Worth.
These days, the entrepreneur and music producer is flat-out broke, and he can partly thank
his kids for that.
After all, having kids is expensive…and he's got another one on the way with fiancée
Raquel Horn.
In November 2019, TMZ reported that Dash owed about $2,400 in an ongoing business lawsuit…but
he reportedly couldn't come up with the money because he had no salary and his business
wasn't at all profitable.
He claimed the only money he was receiving was thanks to Empire creator Lee Daniels,
who reportedly owed him $2 million, clearly quite the sore spot for Dash.
"You know, we had an agreement that if I gave him a certain amount of money that he would
give it back in a certain amount of time."
Dash further explained that even that cash was being garnished by creditors.
It didn't help matters that he allegedly owed his baby mamas a lot of scratch, too.
According to Page Six, Dash was arrested in November 2019 for reportedly owing more than
$400,000 in child support to ex-wife Rachel Roy and ex-girlfriend Cindy Morales.
Apparently, the cops had been after Dash since 2015.
The following month, TMZ reported that the amount he owed had skyrocketed to nearly $1
million.
What's more, the women reportedly cut Dash out of the equation by reaching a settlement,
which allowed their cash to be withdrawn directly out of Daniel's payments to Dash.
All told, it's quite the tangled web.
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