Highlights
- Forbes says Paul McCartney is worth $1.4 billion, making him the third-richest musician behind Jay-Z and Taylor Swift.
- His fortune rests on the Beatles catalog, MPL publishing, touring, an art collection and years of legal fights.
- The Sunday Times called him a billionaire in 2024, but Forbes disputed it since it counted Nancy Shevell’s wealth.
So much for “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Forbes now pegs Paul McCartney‘s fortune at $1.4 billion, making the 84-year-old Beatle the world’s third-richest musician, behind only Taylor Swift at $2 billion and Jay-Z at $2.8 billion.
The news arrived with the launch of Forbes‘ new wealth newsletter, The Billie. Its accountants credit four pillars: the catalog, the touring, the art collection and, deliciously, the legal maneuvers.
Yes, lawsuits made the list. McCartney spent the past two decades fighting for his share of the Beatles songwriting copyrights, a stake Forbes values at $200 million or more.
That fight now pays the star “at least” $10 million a year. Forbes says it paid off handsomely in the new math.
He also pockets 25 percent of the Beatles’ Apple Corps haul, which brings in about $50 million a year from streaming, vinyl and merch.
Then there’s MPL Communications, the publishing company he launched in 1969, reportedly worth at least a quarter-billion dollars. It controls more than 25,000 songs, from Buddy Holly to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
Translation: every time a high school stages Grease, Macca gets a check.
Add touring, which Billboard said passed $1 billion in career grosses back in 2022. Then add property in the U.K. and the Hamptons, plus an art collection. McCartney declined to comment on Forbes’ estimates.
Luckily, he’s been narrating his bank balance for six decades. In 1967, he told The Sunday Times he was surprised to find “I’m rich, yet, I’m not miserable.”
The hustle started in Liverpool. After overhearing neighbors bicker about cash, young Paul made a vow: “OK, I’ll solve that; I will try to get money.”
The Beatles never pretended to be monks about it. “When we first got out of Liverpool, it was money,” he admitted in 2021.
He has also “never been one to think that there’s something dirty about accepting money.”
These days, the fortune doubles as a family safety net. “The nicest thing about having money is you can help people with it,” he told The New York Times.
One footnote: this isn’t technically his first billionaire headline. The Sunday Times crowned him Britain’s first billionaire musician in 2024, but that figure folded in wife Nancy Shevell‘s wealth.
Forbes never counted him as a billionaire, partly for that reason. Now even the skeptics are on board.
Not bad for the guy who wrote “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
