Pop culture news is never short on stories about celebrities going bust, or at least losing major chunks of their fortunes due to lawsuits, embezzlement, or just plain incompetence. Whether it was bad business or poor spending habits, some of the biggest names in the news lost major bank in 2022.
While most on this list went broke, they did suffer major financial setbacks that year. From Bill Cosby's loss in a civil suit to Elon Musk's $44 billion splurge on Twitter, 2022 was not a great economic time for these 8 celebrities.
9 Bill Cosby
Although Cosby was released from prison on a technicality, he remains a pariah for drugging and sexually assaulting several dozen women. One of those women did not take Cosby's early release in silence. A court ruled in June 2022 that Cosby owed one of his victims $500,000 for an assault that occurred at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was just 16 years old. In December 2023, Cosby announced he would be touring for the first time in several years. $500,000 is not much for a man worth millions like Cosby, but more of his accusers are preparing similar lawsuits, and keep in mind, Cosby has 60 known accusers. That is going to add up.
8 Donald Trump (Allegedly)
The ousted President's finances are a bit of a mystery, he has been accused of some shady deals and evidence suggests that he has been lying about his assets (both over and underestimating them) to avoid taxes or to side-step business regulations. According to one of Trump's accounts, by 2022, Trump had lost over $900 million over two years. Trump, reportedly, is still worth around $3 billion, with his major asset being Truth Social, his famously glitchy Twitter alternative for his supporters. Truth Social makes up approximately $700 million of Trump Media's assets.
7 Amber Heard
Heard was sued by her ex-husband Johnny Depp in 2022 for defamation regarding an op-ed she wrote with the ACLU for the Washington Post, accusing Depp of sexual assault. By the time the article came out, she also accused Depp of domestic violence. The jury sided with Depp, and Heard was ordered by the court to pay Depp $10 million. The jury did however side with Heard on one charge of her counter suit, ordering Depp to pay $2 million. Heard now owes Depp approximately $8 million, she has lost all appeals and has no choice but to pay the full amount. She declared bankruptcy in July 2022.
6 Kanye West
West was riding high as one of the few billionaire rap moguls, akin to Jay-Z and Beyoncé. But after stalking his ex, Kim Kardashian, for most of 2021, and intimidating her then-boyfriend Pete Davidson, West went off the deep end in 2022. West came out as blatantly anti-Semitic in a series of interviews, even going so far as to praise Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The backlash was swift.
West lost his deals with GAP and Adidas, and therefore quickly lost his billionaire status. He failed to lobby Sketchers to take him on as a partner and millions of fans have begun to abandon the rapper. If that weren't enough, Kanye lost his custody battle with Kim and will now pay her $200,000 a month in child support.
5 Michael Jordan
2022 was a terrible year for crypto-currency. After a long upward boom, the entire market went bust in the summer of 2022. Before the bust, dozens of celebrities were praising crypto as the future of investing. Also, dozens of stars began to invest in NFTs, including Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg. Among the many investors in the NFT market was ball player Michael Jordan. Jordan's "Six Rings" NFT collection quickly lost value after the trading site FTX collapsed. By the end of 2022, the value of his NFTs fell by 90%. Ouch.
4 Justin Bieber
The fall of crypto and FTX affected every investor, including the million-dollar ones. Model and pop star Justin Bieber was one of the other many celebrities to cash in on NFTs, but he did not cash out soon enough. Bieber's assets used to include an NFT from the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club collections reportedly worth $1.3 million. After the collapse of FTX, that NFT is barely $70,000. The most valuable NFT in that collection was only worth $75,000 as of November 2022.
3 Stephen Curry
Once again, crypto claims another celebrity's wallet. NBA champ Stephen Curry got into the crypto market like many other sports stars did, taking a substantial stake in FTX in 2021. The amount is unknown but the crypto news site beincrypto.com, predicts that Curry's losses will be "substantial." It will also likely affect Curry's charity, Eat.Learn.Play., which was to receive funding from FTX profits as part of his partnership with the company.
2 Tom Brady
Another sports star to invest in the crypto market, NFL champ Tom Brady was not just invested in FTX, he was their ambassador and his then-wife Gisele Bundchen was serving as FTX's advisor of "Environmental and Social Initiatives." Both had a stake of $650 million in the company, which is basically just gone now that FTX collapsed. Brady is likely to lose even more money over the next few years now that he has begun divorce proceedings with Bundchen. The pair announced their divorce in October 2022.
1 Elon Musk
But the biggest financial loser of 2022 is the (former) richest man in the world, ironically. Tech mogul and Tesla CEO Elon Musk lost approximately $200 billion in 2022. After spending $44 billion on Twitter, he then proceeded to run the company so poorly that it drove millions of users to quit the app, including some of its post popular pages. It also forced out more than half of Twitter's staff. What ensued was a series of even worse business moves, he began charging for verified accounts which led to a wave of false information and imposter accounts, he fired the janitorial staff at Twitter, he tried locking out employees when they wouldn't adhere to his ridiculous demands. The list just goes on and on and gets worse and worse from there.
Also, many Tesla investors began to worry that Musk was putting too much attention on running Twitter and not enough on his other companies. The massive backlash he received created a lack of trust in his other brands and sure enough, Tesla's stock value tanked. Also, a lawsuit was filed in 2022 by former Tesla investors who say that Musk's nefarious practices and misrepresentation of the stock prices cost them dearly. If found guilty, Tesla and Musk will have to pay out billions to these investors.
One more thing, that $200 billion loss previously mentioned? Yeah, that caused Musk to lose his status as the world's richest man, the title now belongs to Bernard Arnault, a fashion mogul reported to be worth $164 billion by Investopedia. Musk is the first person in history to lose $200 billion, meaning he is, very literally, the biggest financial loser in history. Calm down Musk stans, that is not a jab at Elon, it is just a plain, simple, unavoidable fact.
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