Though he hasn’t walked this Earth for over seven years, Michael has managed to chalk up a record breaking $825 million in earnings this year.
This places Michael at the top of this year’s Forbes Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities list, which he has consistently topped since his passing in 2009, with the exception of 2012, where he fell to second place in favor of his good friend Elizabeth Taylor who passed in 2011. However, more than that, his earnings in 2016 is the largest single-year payday by any entertainer, living or dead, ever recorded by Forbes. Most of that cash came from this year’s sale of his half of the Sony/ATV music publishing catalogue, which was announced back in March.
