Bruce Springsteen has rejected reports from earlier this year that he is now a billionaire, saying, “I wish I was”.
In July, an estimate by Forbes claimed that the Boss was worth $1.1billion (£850million), after a six-decade career that has seen him release 21 studio albums and a total of over 140 million records.
His net worth received a significant bump in 2021 when he sold his masters and publishing rights to Sony Music in a combined deal worth around $500million (£387million). The deal gives the company ownership of his entire back catalogue, and follows similar deals struck by the likes of Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and Neil Young.
However, in a new interview in The Telegraph, Springsteen has disputed the figure, stating, “I’m not a billionaire. I wish I was, but they got that real wrong.”
He went on to claim that he does not qualify for the 10-figure sum because he has “spent too much money on superfluous things”, although he does not expand on what those things are.
Springsteen continues to be a prolific touring musician, and earlier this week, he opened a show in Toronto with ‘Long Walk Home’, which he introduced as a “fighting prayer”. The show was taking place one day after the presidential election, which was won by Donald Trump, and with Springsteen having been an outspoken advocate for his opponent Kamala Harris, he took the opportunity to play the 2007 song, which he had written about the George W. Bush era in America.
The Boss had previously described Trump as “mentally ill” and had dubbed this week’s election as “the most consequential in our nation’s history”. He played at a number of official Harris rallies, and also starred in a powerful campaign advert for her Democratic campaign.
Springsteen is also set to get the biopic treatment in Deliver Me From Nowhere, where he will be played by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White. In recent days, he stopped by the set of the film and was photographed with White and director Scott Cooper while they were shooting a scene in a car dealership in Bayonne, New Jersey. The film is expected to be released in 2025.
