Taylor Swift is now a billionaire and is estimated to be worth $1.1 billion, according to Forbes. But what distinguishes the 33-year-old singer-songwriter from other wealthy artists is how she accumulated her billion-dollar fortune.
Swift’s net worth doesn’t largely derive from profitable side hustles (think: beauty brands, fashion lines, alcohol investments, etc.), which have been the typical avenues for music icons and entertainers to become billionaires in recent years.
For example, Jay-Z’s alcohol brands Armand de Brignac and D’usse, his entertainment companies Tidal and Roc Nation and his stakes in Uber propelled the hip-hop star to become a billionaire in 2019. In August 2021, Rihanna reached the milestone with her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, a joint venture with LVMH, and her inclusive lingerie line Savage X Fenty.
But in a rare feat, Swift’s billionaire status was achieved largely by music, which puts her in a unique category with artists like Bruce Springsteen, who earned $1 billion from “on the road touring,” per Forbes.
More than $500 million of Swift’s fortune is from music royalties and touring. She made an estimated $190 million after taxes from the first leg of the Eras tour and another $35 million from the first two weeks of screenings of the corresponding concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, which hit theaters on Oct. 13.
Meanwhile, another $500 million of her earnings came from the increasing value of her music catalog. Her masters (Swift’s first six albums) were infamously purchased in 2019 by Scooter Braun and eventually sold to Shamrock Capital for $300 million in 2020.
“This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept,” Swift penned on Tumblr in 2019 when she learned that Braun had bought her masters. “Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”
At the time, Swift also parted ways with her long-time home, Big Machine Label Group, to join Universal Music Group’s Republic Records, a deal that would give the superstar complete ownership over songwriting and the recordings, ultimately boosting her earnings in the long run.
“I’m ecstatic to announce that my musical home will be Republic Records and Universal Music Group,” Swift wrote on Instagram about the news. “Over the years, [UMG chief] Sir Lucian Grainge and [Republic chief] Monte Lipman have been such incredible partners. It’s so thrilling to me that they, and the UMG team, will be my label family moving forward. It’s also incredibly exciting to know that I’ll own all of my master recordings that I make from now on.”
Since switching labels, Swift has released four new albums, Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights, and re-recorded Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version). She has two more re-records to go.
Swift’s the sole writer on over one-fourth of her top 50 Billboard chart hits, although she frequently shares writing credits with collaborators like Jack Antonoff and Max Martin, who also get a portion of a record sale.
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