David Robert Jones was born on 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London, England; known world-wide as David Bowie, he was an outstanding entertainer, firstly as a singer, but also as a songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and actor, recognised as one the most outstanding music entertainers Britain has produced, on a par with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the modern era. He passed away in 2016.
A world-renowned singer and songwriter, how rich was David Bowie? According to sources, David Bowie’s net worth was estimated to be over $230 million, most of which he accumulated from his successful singing career spanning over 50 years. in 2002 his earnings from the “Heathen” album alone amounted to $2.5 million, while in 2013, his album called “The Next Day” brought him $250,000.
David Bowie Net Worth $230 Million
Bowie studied at the Burnt Ash Junior School, where he excelled in the school’s choir, and also proved to be a talented dancer. Inspired by John Coltrane and Charles Mingus, Bowie took up saxophone classes, which he played in the first band with whom Bowie performed at various local events and gatherings. Subsequently, Bowie decided to follow a career in the music industry, initially playing professionally in such bands as “The Konrads” and “The King Bees”, but later joined “The Manish Boys” and “The Lower Third”. Since he had difficulty attracting the audience’s attention as a member of rock groups, Bowie decided upon launching a solo career, as a result of which he changed his name from David Jones to David Bowie.
Bowie rose to prominence in 1969 with the release of his single called “Space Oddity”, which captured the imagination of the public in the period of extensive space exploration. The song became so popular that it earned him an Ivor Novello Award, and was included in the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. That same year, Bowie released his second studio album, which was initially entitled “David Bowie”, but due to the popularity of the song was renamed “Space Oddity”. A further big break for Bowie came in 1975, when he came out with the album called “Young Americans”, which produced the popular single “Fame”.
Over 30 years he produced a variety of performances and personas, in song, on the stage in concerts, and in films. Bowie’s discography eventually stretched to 27 studio albums, nine live albums, and seven compilations albums, the last “Black Star” just days before his passing. Additionally his collaborations with such artists as Queen and Annie Lennox were inevitably applauded by audiences world-wide. In the UK, he scored nine Platinum album certifications, eleven Gold and eight Silver, while in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. Bowie’s contributions to music have been acknowledged with Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards, and Saturn Awards to name a few. Bowie has also been included in the list of “100 Greatest Britons”, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Following his breakthrough with “Space Oddity”, Bowie not only became a prominent singer, but an actor as well, which he had begun prior to succeeding in music. Over the years, Bowie received a Saturn Award for his role in “The Man Who Fell To Earth” in 1976, was highly commended for his role in “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”(1983), and made appearances in such films as “Yellowbeard”(1983) with David Sherlock and Peter Cook, “The Linguini Incident”(1991) and the now iconic musical fantasy film “Labyrinth”(1986), which despite its initial commercial failure, soon gained a cult following, and inspired the release of a graphic novel.
David Bowie was always smart enough to ensure his net worth continued to rise along with his continued popularity, which became world-wide, even using discussions about his sexuality for propaganda purposes – at one point he declared himself a ‘closet heterosexual’ – but the quality of his performances in entertaining audiences never wavered, so much so that he was named by Rolling Stone magazine in their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and in a BBC poll of 2002, the 29th Greatest Briton of All Time.
Of further interest, Bowie’s financial management of assets became a leader in the entertainment industry, not just by moving his tax residence to Switzerland, but in 1997, when only assets such as mortgages and car loans were securitised, David was persuaded to securitise future revenues from his catalogue of songs. This enabled him to buy back rights to his songs, the securitised royalties were eventually known as ‘Bowie bonds’, and were registered as a trademark. Bowie actually sold future revenues from 287 songs to Prudential Insurance at 7.9 per cent interest – higher than ten-year US Treasury bonds – on the $55 million he received. David Bowie was certainly not your average rock star who lived only for the moment.
His achievements were such that he was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999, but declined both British honours of a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and a knighthood in 2003. He also received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 1999.
In regards to his personal life – which he kept largely private – David Bowie was married twice. His first marriage to Mary Angela Barnett ended in divorce in 1980, a decade after their marriage in 1970. In 1992 he married Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid. David Bowie has two children, namely Duncan Jones (christened Zowie Bowie) with Mary, and Alexandria Zahra Jones with Imam. Sadly, David Bowie died on 10 January 2016 in New York City from liver cancer, which had been diagnosed just 18 months previously.
