Bruce Springsteen has set the record straight on his net worth. The “Born to Run” rocker is not a billionaire, he says, contrary to recent reports about his allegedly sky-high wealth.
Forbes claimed Bruce Springsteen was worth $1 billion
Springsteen has spent decades churning out hit albums like The River, Born in the USA, and The Rising. So, when Forbes declared in July 2024 that the multi-time Grammy winner was worth $1.1 billion according to its conservative estimate, it seemed plausible. After all, in 2021, he sold his music catalog to Sony for $500 million. In 2023, he embarked on a world tour that generated $380 million in revenue. Throughout his career, he’s sold more than 140 million albums.
However, all that success doesn’t add up to a billion dollars, Springsteen says.
“I’m not a billionaire,” he told The Telegraph in a recent interview. “I wish I was, but they got that real wrong. I’ve spent too much money on superfluous things.”
‘Born in the USA’ singer says he’s had ‘good fortune’
Springsteen might not be a billionaire. However, he’s not exactly hurting financially. He told The Telegraph that he’s enjoyed “good fortune” over the years.
But Springsteen says he’s tried not to let the money change him too much. “That’s usually where things go south,” he said. Instead, his focus was on nurturing his musical talent.
“If I had failed at that, I would have failed at everything, in my opinion,” he said.
In the past, Springsteen has opened up about his complicated relationship with financial success. In 1981, he’d finally reached a point where he wasn’t worrying about money. That set him apart from the working-class community where he’d grown up.
“I was solvent, which would make me unique in my little neighborhood,” he said in Warren Zanes’ 2023 book Deliver Me From Nowhere, about the making of Springsteen’s Nebraska album.
“So I was dealing with that, with all my very conflicted feelings about being so separate from the people that I’d grown up around and that I wrote about.”
Bruce Springsteen has spoken out against income inequality
Years later, Springsteen was still thinking about money, who has it and who doesn’t, and what that means for society.
“There is a tremendous problem with income inequality in the States right now, and it’s been increasing and increasing,” he told reporters in South Africa in 2014, Reuters reported.
“Initially it tears society apart, and I don’t think society can make good when economic differences and economic inequalities are so widespread,” he added. “It is a real problem in the United States and a big problem here, too.”
For more on the entertainment world and exclusive interviews, subscribe to Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s YouTube channel.
