20
F
R
O
N
T
R
U
N
N
ER
Celebrities Cont.
FORBES.COM
ED
ITE
D^ B
Y^ Z
AC
K^ O
’M
AL
LE
Y^ G
RE
EN
BU
RG
;^ R
EP
OR
TE
D^ B
Y^ K
UR
T^ B
AD
EN
HA
US
EN
,^ M
AD
EL
IN
E^ B
ER
G,^
HA
YL
EY
CU
CC
IN
EL
LO
AN
D^ A
RIE
L^ S
HA
PIR
O.
SO
UR
CE
S:^
NI
EL
SE
N^
MU
SIC
;^ IM
DB
;^ IN
TE
RV
IEW
S^ W
ITH
IN
DU
ST
RY
IN
SID
ER
S.^
FIG
UR
ES
RE
PR
ES
EN
T^ E
ST
IM
AT
ED
PR
ETA
X^ I
NC
OM
E^ F
RO
M^
OC
TO
BE
R^1
,^2
018
,^ TH
RO
UG
H^ O
CT
OB
ER
1 ,^
20
19.
TOP-EARNING
DEAD CELEBS
NOVEMBER 30, 20 19
It wasn’t Rodeo Drive. But rapper
Nipsey Hussle could look around at
the strip mall he’d purchased in South
Los Angeles—home to Baba Leo’s Fish
Shack, Steve’s Barbershop and a Boost
Mobile—and fall into a rhapsody about
the area’s potential. He earned his nom
de hip-hop selling socks, T-shirts and
other more illicit goods nearby. Now he
had a vision for redeveloping the plaza
and had started by opening his own
clothing store, calling it The Marathon
to emphasize his long-term outlook.
“We want to create enterprise
around the music,” the 33-year-old art-
ist explained in February 2019, seated
in one of the mall’s stores. “As passion-
ate as I am for music, I... have equal
passion for making sure that when the
music stops, the thing keeps going.”
Seven weeks later, Nipsey Hussle
was gunned down in front of The
Marathon. But things kept going. In
fact, they kept going so well that he
landed at No. 10 on our annual list of
the top-earning dead celebrities. All
told, Nipsey Hussle earned $11 mil-
lion in the past 12 months, a bigger
annual haul than in any year he was
alive. In just the U.S., the Grammy-
nominated rapper clocked 1.8 billion
streams over the past 12 months, and
his prescient insistence on maintaining
control of his master recordings means
more cash per spin than most stars
in this world or the next. In addition
to his music, there was his Marathon
income and a Puma partnership.
Nipsey Hussle could regularly haunt
this list if everything in South L.A. goes
according to plan—adding apartments,
plus a Nipsey Hussle museum per-
haps—and his heirs release what busi-
ness partner Steve Carless describes as
“hundreds of ideas” in the vault, from
hooks to verses to complete songs.
“Nipsey was never interested in
piecing together albums that didn’t
fit a certain level of continuity,” Car-
less says. “We’re going to be even
more meticulous about how we get
back to the masses, and how we keep
pushing forward his message.”
- MICHAEL JACKSON
$60 MILLION
CAUSE OF DEATH:
Overdose/homicide
DIED: June 25, 2009 - ELVIS PRESLEY
$39 MILLION
Heart attack
August 16, 1977 - CHARLES SCHULZ
$38 MILLION
Cancer
February 12, 2000 - ARNOLD PALMER
$30 MILLION
Heart disease
September 25, 2016 - BOB MARLEY
$20 MILLION
Cancer
May 11, 1981 - DR. SEUSS
$19 MILLION
Cancer
September 24, 1991 - JOHN LENNON
$14 MILLION
Homicide
December 8, 1980 - MARILYN MONROE
$13 MILLION
Overdose
August 5, 1962 - PRINCE
$12 MILLION
Overdose
April 21, 2016 - NIPSEY HUSSLE
$11 MILLION
Homicide
March 31, 2019 - XXXTENTACION
$10 MILLION
Homicide
June 18, 2018 - WHITNEY HOUSTON
$9.5 MILLION
Drowning
February 11, 2012 - GEORGE HARRISON
$9 MILLION
Cancer
November 29, 2001