Rock band Queen may be richer than the Queen herself thanks to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
One major reason to look forward to The Sunday Times Rich List is the probability that the three surviving members of Queen are richer than the monarch herself.
The massive box-office success of 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' which tells the extraordinary story of Freddie Mercury and his band, 'Queen,' has left the surviving band members namely Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon together sitting on a £445m ($58 M) fortune. Their combined wealth is larger than that of the British Queen herself which is estimated to be £370m ($48 M).
Each member is said to be adding an estimated £25m ($3 M) to their wealth this year, according to the publication, but the monarchy's wealth has "flat-lined." The British monarchy once the wealthiest Britons, lost their rank when Queen Elizabeth II ceded her leadership in 1994 after some criteria were changed. The Queen had been topping the list for five years from 1989 to 1994. She came in at fourth last year. However, the Rich List has now set a strict criteria, it now excludes the Crown Estate and the Royal Art Collection from the Queen's assets.
The 'Bohemian Rhapsody' film is close to raking $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales and has played a major role in increasing the band's fortunes. The rock band's hits also bring royalties in and Bohemian Rhapsody was recently named as the most streamed song from the 20th century.
However, according to a Reuters report, Queen Elizabeth II became the wealthiest as a result of the 2007 global financial crisis. The British monarchy benefited heavily from the increase in house and land prices, making them the most powerful family on the planet. Since it is not possible to calculate how much the monarchy is truly worth, the calculation done on the monarchy’s interest in 2015 had nominal assets valued at approximately £22.8 billion ($30 bn).
Even though the UK-based musicians, 'Queen,' have earned a sizable amount of money since the release of the Oscar-winning film and even prior to that the net worth of the band was huge after selling over 300 million albums, it's hard to believe that they are richer than one of the oldest monarchies in the world.
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