Six of the 13 listed “highest earners” are Black male celebrities. The oldest died at age 65.
According to Forbes‘ “highest-earning dead celebrities” list of 2025, six Black male celebrities are making the most posthumous income.
The list of 13 celebrities includes Michael Jackson at #1, The Notorious B.I.G. at #5, Miles Davis at #6, Bob Marley at #9, Prince at #11, and Kobe Bryant at #13. Jackson, who died in 2009, has been named the top earner by the publication 13 times since 2010. The oldest person in this group was Miles Davis, who died at 65 years old from a stroke.
The Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie Smalls, who was murdered at 24, is the youngest on the entire list. Following him is Bob Marley, who died of cancer at age 36.
The Jackson estate has made $3.5 billion since the King of Pop died at 51 years old. According to the publication, some of the posthumous projects that contributed to this were the 2009 film “This Is It,” which grossed $267 million at the box office, the 2012 Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil tour that grossed $160 million and led to a Vegas residency, and the Broadway production, “MJ: The Musical,” which made $300 after debuting in 2022.
In addition to the posthumous projects, the Jackson estate sold Sony a combination of his publishing rights and master recordings, along with his ATV catalog, which he purchased for $4.75 million in 1985. The ATV catalog was sold to Sony for $750 million in 2016, and a 50% stake in Jackson’s publishing rights and master recordings sold in 2024 for $600 million.
Kobe Bryant died the most recently of anyone on the list, Black or otherwise. The basketball star was 41 when a fatal helicopter crash in 2020 killed him, his 13-year-old daughter, Gigi Bryant, and seven others.
According to Forbes, Nike’s sales of Bryant’s footwear brand quadrupled its revenue in the past year. Bryant’s estate inked a new deal with the sportswear company in 2022 to continue an ongoing partnership, this time selling both Kobe and Gigi products. Vanessa Bryant, the widow of Kobe Bryant, said in an Instagram post that the proceeds from her daughter’s products would be donated to the family’s nonprofit, Mamba and Mambacita Sports Foundation.
The other public figures who made the list are Elvis Presley, the cofounders of Pink Floyd, Richard Wright and Syd Barrett, Dr. Seuss, Jimmy Buffett, John Lennon, and Arnold Palmer. Dr. Seuss and Palmer are the oldest people on the list, both dying at 87 years old.
