Tag Archives: celebrity financial blunders

Marvel Over These Bad Celebrity Investments

Celebs are individuals, too. They make poor investments and lose cash like everyone else. Here are a few bad celebrity investments people remember.

How did Mark Twain invest?

One bad investment was made by the first modern celebrity in America, Mark Twain. During the last 19th century, he got a Paige Compositor that was supposed to be a typesetter faster than the standard Linotype. It wound up not working well because it had over 18,000 parts and needed to be cared for too much. Over 11 years, Twain spent $150,000 to $300,000 on the machine, which was a ton of cash back in his day.

Hotels by Jay-Z

Another example of a very poor investment was when Jay-Z decided to put up a 15,000-square-foot luxury hotel in the Chelsea neighborhood in 2007. He got a $52 million loan, and wound up not being able to pay it when the economy crashed in 2008. He defaulted on the loan, and the lender got the land back. The construction as never finished. It wasn’t until December 2010 that the whole ordeal was over with out-of-court settlements.

Bono not making an investment wisely

The media and entertainment firm Elevation Partners is really managed by Bono. The website 24/7 Wall Street said that Bono is “The worst investor in America” when he only got a $25 million return on investments in Palm ($460 million) and Forbes, Inc. ($300 million). He was very profitable when he invested in BioWare, Pandemic Studios, Yelp and Facebook.

Investment decision from Larry King

A massive life insurance scam was put on King when he invested into two policies worth $15 million. He wound up only getting $1.4 million out of the sale.

Every person associated with Madoff

More than 200 investors, such as celebs were taken in by Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Madoff is now in jail serving 150 years for 11 federal felonies, while celebrities and lower-profile investors are still looking for ways to make up for their sizable financial loss.

Bad investment from Burt Reynolds

PoFolks was a restaurant chain opened in California, Texas and Florida by film star Burt Reynolds. He is not the only film star who has tried to make this investment. He wound up going bankruptcy in 1996 after losing $15 million on the project and after getting divorced from Loni Anderson. Bankruptcy court let him keep all the property unclaimed by Anderson and his $2.5 million mansion regardless of the belief that he was over $10 million in debt.

Poor investment form Debbie Reynolds

In 1997, Debbie Reynolds would deal with her first bankruptcy due to a Vegas casino she decided to start in 1991. When she started the casino, called Debbie Reynolds Hotel & Casino, she did not realize it would never get business by being off the strip. She wound up handling the bankruptcy and selling the hotel off for $10 million in 1998 to the World Wrestling Federation. Last year, she would also end up selling all things from her film career as her memorabilia museum would also go bankrupt.

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