As Nicholas Cage's long battle with debt and hefty IRS bills shows, earning a lot of money through music or movies does not necessarily make one good at business.
Some go broke from keeping up a lavish lifestyle that they can't really afford, others build some wealth and settle into a life of quiet comfort while still others use their popularity to build entire empires — Kanye West's mega-popular Yeezy brand and multiple partnerships with young business owners or Rihanna's Fenty makeup, skincare and lingerie lines are great examples.
But even beyond launching lines one's passionate about, some celebrities have set the specific goal of growing wealth by finding companies that are going to explode.
According to some recent numbers crunched by online investment portal Invezz, ABC "Shark Tank" star and majority Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is by far the most successful celebrity investor in the country.
Celebrities Who Developed An Interest In Investing
Since launching computer consulting company MicroSolutions in the 1990s, Cuban has raised over $3.3 billion. Cuban is perhaps not the best example as he's always been an entrepreneur and businessman first — he shot to fame after appearing as a shark on season 2 of "Shark Tank."
Jared Leto and Ashton Kutcher, meanwhile, started out in Hollywood and later turned to investing. After starring in a number of popular films, the men behind Cuban in the top three of the list earned a respective $2.7 billion and $2.06 billion by investing the funds they earned from their popularity.
Leto was an early backer of companies like Uber (UBER), Airbnb (ABNB) and Slack.
Kutcher also invested in Uber and Airbnb as well as everything from music platform Spotify (SPOT) to song recognition app Shazam and audio platform SoundCloud.
In the nearly thirty years that passed since his first rap album, Jay-Z has become just as well known for his business sense as for his music. Worth $1.43 billion, Jay-Z regularly seeks out emerging companies before they make it big and, over the years, built fashion brand Rocawear and sports bar 40/40 to multi-million dollar businesses.
Other big names in the top five include singer-songwriter Drake, top actor Ryan Reynolds and basketball legend Kevin Durant. As their fame started to grow, each turned to investing to grow their wealth to over $1 billion.
The top ten does not, unfortunately, include any women.
Investing A Lot Does Not Always Mean Growing Wealth
Making a lot of investments is not always synonymous with the biggest wealth — while Cuban also led the list when it comes to total number of investments, basketball player Baron Davis and Nasir Jones landed in the top five with over 40 but do not come anywhere near the billionaire status of the Cuban, Leto or Jay-Z.
"The remaining investors have made 243 investments between them, only 12 more than Mark Cuban alone," the study's authors write. "[...] The popular band, The Chainsmokers, have made the most recent investment outside the top three and is one of three investors who has made an investment in July, joining Will Smith and Baron Davis."
Will Smith also made the top 10 by investing in 26 companies over the years.
SEE THE FULL LIST OF MOST SUCCESSFUL AND MOST FREQUENT CELEBRITY INVESTORS HERE.
