The Nation's Pulse: Bad Girls Go Out

American Spectator Magazine ^ | Published 11/30/2006 12:07:10 AM | Carol Platt Liebau

[wideawake]

have to question your analysis here. I don't have a better one, yet it doesn't seem logical that she's doing it for cash.

She is not doing it directly for cash - although increased cash flow is one of the intended consequences.

It is about PR - restoring an edgy image that was lost.

With a net worth valued at over $150,000,000, she makes her heiress pal Paris seem poor by comparison.

I sincerely doubt her personal net worth is 150M.

She's only had a solitary #1 hit, and that was more than 8 years ago.

If Paris Hilton's folks have not cut her out of their will, she personally stands to inherit at least 300M in public equity alone and probably more than 500M in total assets.

But I agree with you: the motivation isn't a cash payment in exchange for photographs - it is just a part of a PR strategy meant to prove that motherhood hasn't quenched her sexuality or love of the nightlife: i.e. she's still "hot."

[Melas]

I sincerely doubt her personal net worth is 150M. She's only had a solitary #1 hit, and that was more than 8 years ago.

I tend to trust Forbes when it comes to net worth. I don't think her music has much to do with her wealth. She's been all about marketing, and then marketing some more. She was paid fortunes by Pepsi, THQ (maker of her Playstation game, Dancebeat), Play Along Toys (for the best selling doll bearing the likeness of a real person, ever), Yaboom toys for yet another doll, several book licenses, two fragrances for which she was paid over $20 million combined upfront not her generous cut of sales, a board game, a gazilion posters, lunch boxes, clothing, ludicrous sums for cable concerts....you get the idea.

Give that she's probably made better than $40 million off the perfumes alone, I don't doubt Forbes for a second when they estimated her wealth at $150m.