So … Where’d All That Money Go?
It’s an old story by now: An actor makes it big, starts raking in piles of money, spends it foolishly, goes into debt and winds up declaring bankruptcy. It’s as much of a Hollywood ending today as a classic movie kiss. The latest celeb to go broke is actor Gary Busey, who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week. Papers show that he has less than $50,000 and debts of up to $1 million. The 67-year-old Busey has appeared in dozens of films over the past several decades and was a regular in shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” But over the years, Busey mishandled his finances and now owes money he can’t pay to the IRS, the UCLA Medical Facility, Wells Fargo and others. According to a statement by Busey’s manager, the bankruptcy follows “past unfortunate choices, associations, events and circumstances that visited themselves upon this great American icon.” Busey, of course, is just one in a long line of celebs who have managed their money so poorly that they’ve had to file for bankruptcy. Here are 10 of the most notorious.
Next: MC Hammer
MC Hammer
Forget Turtle and Johnny Drama. MC Hammer had an entourage for the ages: a 200-person crew that reportedly cost him $500,000 every month. To be fair, who else was going to wash all of those Hammer pants? Not to mention there was probably a lot of housework to be done in Hammer’s $30 million mansion. Back in 1990, spending that much cash on a house might not have seemed so crazy. According to Forbes, Hammer pulled in $33 million after his Diamond-selling album Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em was released. It only took six years before he found himself in bankruptcy court claiming assets of $9.6 million compared to debts of $13.7 million. He even owed $500,000 to NFL-star-turned-analyst Deion “Prime Time” Sanders. While Hammer has recovered to, among others things, help start a new search engine called WireDoo, the sting of his bankruptcy lives on. In 2010, the most lopsided beef in rap history played out when Jay-Z joked about Hammer’s financial troubles on Kanye West’s song “So Appalled,” prompting Hammer to release a music video on YouTube featuring a Jay-Z lookalike running away from the Devil.
Next: Mike Tyson
