John Charles Barrett was born on 28 October 1953, in Gainesville, Florida USA, to Cuban songwriter Elena Casals, and an American father. Under his professional name of Desmond Child, he is a music producer and professional song writer, hailed as one of the most successful and influential songwriters in the music world throughout the whole of his nearly thirty-year-long career, Desmond Child has worked with such world-renowned performers as KISS, Bon Jovi, Ricky Martin, Scorpions and Aerosmith, and has been inducted into the prestigious Songwriters’ Hall of Fame – ensuring his staggering net worth can only continue to grow.
So just how rich is Desmond Child? Authoritative sources state that Desmond has an estimated net worth of $200 million, accumulated furing his career which began in the mid-1970s.
Desmond Child Net Worth $200 Million
Elena’s love of music was to have a decisive formative influence on her son; it was from her that Child learned how to play the piano in his youth. He entered his first band during his high school years, but it would not be until he joined the Miami-Dade College that Child stepped permanently into the music industry – forming ‘Desmond Child and Rouge’ with fellow performers Maria Vidal and Diana Grasselli in 1973. The trio moved to New York City not long after, where they secured a record deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and went on to produce the hit “Our Love Is Insane”, which climbed to 50th place on that year’s Billboard Hot 100.
Child’s real career, however, was still ahead of him, and it was in the same year when he first performed “Our Love Is Insane” that he was first noticed by KISS member and guitarist Paul Stanley, who offered Child a chance to help write their newest album, Dynasty. The final outcome was “I Was Made for Loving You” – which remains one of KISS’s greatest successes to date, and which sealed Desmond Child’s career as a songwriter. Paul Stanley would go on to recommend him to other performers, particularly Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, with whom Child was able to replicate his prior successes time and again, producing such memorable and chart-topping hits as Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer”, Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” and “Angel”, as well as helping with Michael Bolton’s “How Can We Be Lovers” and Cher’s “We All Sleep Alone”.Of course all of these successes contributed significantly to Desmond’s growing net worth.
After this incredible string of successes, he took a step back and revisited his Latin roots through his work with Ricky Martin, with whom he produced the wildly famous “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. In 2008, Child was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in recognition of his career; recently, in 2013, he helped found the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame together with Rudy Perez, another Cuban-American music writer.
In spite of his nearly three decade long career in various fields of the music industry, Desmond Child remains as confident and energetic as ever, and continues to actively participate in various productions. Today, he resides in the city of Nashville, Tennessee, together with his partner, Curtis Shaw, and their twin sons, Roman and Nyro.
