No, Michael Jackson was not broke. Forbes.com estimates his net worth at around $350 million, but this isn't the full scoop on his net worth. Michael was between $200 and $270 milllion in debt.

In liquid cash, he had around $50 million to spend. He also had around $650 million in real estate assets, he also hold the Beatles catalog which is estimated at between $500 million to $1 billion (but we'll put it at $500 million). Not only this, he holds the rights to his own music as well as a few others, which is worth around $150 million.

He has also put out a new album (new depending on when you read this) called "Thriller 25" which is currently the NO.2 album in the country. So that brings in some income. So if you add all of this together and subtract his debt, his total net worth is around $1.3 billion.

So he was not broke. But this raises another question. If he has $1.3 billion in the bank, why cant he pay off his debt? Simply because the $1.3 billion isn't liquid cash. Its all assets, he'll only get that money if he sells them off. So why doesn't he sell them off? He likes the positive cash flow and most of his assets are the leverage for all of his loans.

So there you have it, the King of Pop was no where near broke or bankrupt. If he was, how did he move into a private island worth around $35 million when he moved to Bahrain for a few months, next to the Kings own personal island i might add. He also had plans to move into the most expensive home for sale in southern florida, but declined saying it was too small. Does this sound like someone who is near broke? Not to me.

It’s unfair that Michael Jackson is portrayed as broke because he has a $300 million dollar outstanding loan and Neverland almost foreclosed on. Michael owns one-half of a $1.8-2.1 Billion company.

Consider this, Last year, Sony/ATV paid $370m for Famous Songs which owned 125,000 songs from such artists as eminem and shakira. This comes out to approximately $3,000 per copyright or about the cost of a licensing a song for a local commercial (or about 1/50 of licensing one for a national commercial or 1/1000th of licensing a Beatles song). It’s well established that Sony ATV has the worlds best collection of copyrights by owning the Beatles songs and many Elvis songs but as a whole they own 600,000 songs. Even valuing at the same price that they paid for Famous Music’s less impressive catalog would value the company at $1.8 billion. (600,000 times $3,000) Factor in a conservative $200m extra for the Beatles piece alone and the company is worth $2.0 billion. Thus Michael’s piece is $1 billion. Of course subtract his debt and add all of his other holdings including his own copyrights which are worth quite a bit them self.

Related Sources:

01) NY Times.com – What Happened to the Fortune Michael Jackson Made?