In 2001, Elvis Presley topped Forbes’ first list tracking the highest-earning celebrity estates, and The King has appeared on every edition of the rankings in the 25 years since, earning over $1.2 billion during that span. Yet it’s another member of music royalty who has truly broken the paradigm for posthumous earnings—Elvis’ onetime son-in-law, Michael Jackson.

The King of Pop’s estate has earned an astonishing $3.5 billion since his death in 2009, according to Forbes estimates, topping this year’s list once again with $105 million in earnings over the past 12 months. “When it comes to estate earnings,” one high-profile estate lawyer tells Forbes, “It’s MJ, then an enormous canyon, then everybody else.”

The biggest paydays came from unwinding assets that Jackson accumulated during his life. In addition to owning his own publishing rights and master recordings, Jackson also purchased the ATV catalog for $47.5 million in 1985—about $142 million today—which included among its nearly 4,000 songs almost every hit written together by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. That investment eventually returned $750 million in 2016 (around $1 billion today) when the estate sold its stake to Sony. Not included in that sale was Jackson’s own publishing and master recordings, but in 2024 his estate sold a 50% stake in those assets to Sony for another $600 million—much to the dismay of Jackson’s mother, Katherine, who said the sale would be against Jackson’s wishes and tried to block the deal in court.

In all the years between megadeals, Jackson’s brand has continued to mint money across many different categories—almost entirely unaffected by the sexual abuse allegations that hung over the final years of his life, or the 2019 Finding Neverland documentary detailing them. His posthumous 2009 concert film, This Is It, grossed $267 million at the box office, and an MJ-themed Cirque du Soleil tour in 2012 grossed $160 million, making it the most successful concert tour of that year and earning Jackson more money than any living musician. That success gave rise to Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson ONE, which has held a residency in Las Vegas since 2013, and a Broadway show, MJ: The Musical, which debuted in 2022, totaling almost $300 million in total ticket sales and spawning several international productions.

A Pair of Kings  

Though Michael Jackson died 32 years after Elvis, the King of Pop has lapped the King of Rock and Roll as the highest-earning celebrity estate since Forbes began tracking them in 2001. In addition to his nine-figure transactions, MJ’s music has remained a moneymaker across nearly every medium, including Broadway shows, a Cirque du Soleil residency, and a forthcoming big screen biopic. Here’s how he stacks up in cumulative earning against the rest of the top five across the past 25 years:  

Because of the global appeal of pop music, and the likelihood that star recording artists receive a higher percentage of residual profits than, say, actors from their catalog of movies or TV shows, musicians once again dominate this year’s list, making up 10 of the top 13, who earned a total of $541 million combined before taxes and fees. Master recordings and publishing rights continue to print millions each year for icons such as Prince, John Lennon and Bob Marley.

A handful of newcomers found their way onto the list this year by selling the rights to that residual income to eager third parties, many of whom are backed by private equity. While the market for music assets has cooled from its pandemic-era insanity—when dealmakers reported valuations of 20-times revenue, and artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen cashed out for hundreds of millions of dollars—but musicians like The Notorious B.I.G., Miles Davis and two deceased members of Pink Floyd all found big paydays on the open market this past year.

Other celebrities’ estates still receive royalties for the branded physical products they made famous. Arnold Palmer’s eponymous drink, for instance, sells an estimated $200 million worth of product each year, and Kobe Bryant’s sneakers continue to fly off the shelves for Nike. For Jimmy Buffett, the Margaritaville brand has yet to find a product it couldn’t attach its name to and sell to an army of Parrotheads—from apparel to hotels to several Buffett-inspired retirement communities.

Rare is the celebrity whose appeal does not diminish in the years after their death, and rarer still is one whose family still controls the rights to his or her works and name, image and likeness—not the case for former listees, including Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, and Muhammad Ali.

Still, for these lucky 13, the roads of the afterlife remain paved with gold.