They will have to put aside this colossal heritage. Mick Jagger’s rights to the Rolling Stones catalog could be left to charities, rather than to his children, he suggested in an interview with Wall Street Journal on September 26. “My children don’t need $500 million to live,” explained Mick Jagger, 80, who hopes that this donation will do “a little good in the world”.
Born to five different women, the singer’s eight children – aged 52, for the eldest (Karis Jagger), and 6 years old, for the last (Deveraux Jagger) – will however inherit part of the colossal fortune of their father. This would amount to $300 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The co-founder of the group also owns numerous prestigious real estate properties, in London, New York, and in Touraine, where he has a castle.
“Posthumous” tour
Mick Jagger also revealed in the same interview that the Stones did not own some of their early hits. “The industry was so nascent that it didn’t have the support and the number of people who could advise you today,” he told the Wall Street Journal, noting that “it still happens.”
The singer also says he is certain that the group will continue to bring in royalties, a few weeks before the release, on October 20, of “Hackney Diamonds”, his 24th studio album. The first in eighteen years. He also raises the possibility that the Stones would perform on a “posthumous” tour in the form of holograms, as the Abba group has already done.
In recent years, several artists have sold the rights to their catalog for astronomical sums, such as Bruce Springsteen (500 million dollars), Sting (300 million) or David Bowie (250 million). A possibility already brushed aside last year by the Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards: “I don’t know if we are ready to sell our catalog, he then told CBS. We could make it last a bit, put a few extra things in it. The only problem when you sell your catalog is that you show a sign of aging.”