Even the rich and famous experience career lows and financial disappointments. Take pop icon Lady Gaga, who wound up deep in debt after her second worldwide concert tour.
Here are other celebs who made it big, lost it all and then managed to bounce back.
Lady Gaga was $3 million in debt after her Monster Ball tour
Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, has won nine Grammys, done five concert tours and performed at the Super Bowl. And, having sold more than 11 million albums, she’s built a sizable fortune in the process.
But she hasn’t always been flush.
“I actually went bankrupt after the first extension of The Monster Ball,” she told the Financial Times in a 2011 interview, referring to her second worldwide concert tour, which ran from 2009 to 2011. “And it was funny because I didn’t know! And I remember I called everybody and said, ‘Why is everyone saying I have no money? This is ridiculous, I have five No. 1 singles.’ And they said, ‘Well, you’re $3 million in debt.'”
Gaga was able to get out of the red thanks to “the sheer quality and popularity” of her work, the FT reported. And today, she’s doing well for herself: In July 2018, Forbes reported that Gaga had already earned $50 million in the first seven months of the year — and that was before the release of “A Star Is Born.”
Will Smith was broke and in trouble with the IRS
Will Smith rose to fame after releasing the hit song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” with Jeffrey Townes in 1988. It earned them a Grammy and was featured on an album that went triple-platinum.
Suddenly in the spotlight, Smith started living beyond his means, splurging on cars, motorcycles and name-brand clothing. He stopped paying his taxes, and the IRS even seized many of his more glamorous purchases.
“Being famous and broke is a sh—- combination because you’re still famous and people recognize you, but they recognize you while you’re sitting next to them on the bus,” he said on an edition of his YouTube series “STORYTIME.”
Smith, who turned his career and finances around after landing his role on “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” said on a 2018 Instagram story that “failure actually helps you to recognize the areas where you need to evolve. So fail early, fail often, fail forward.”
Cher once ‘owed the government $278,000’
Grammy-winner Cher first caused a stir in the music industry in 1965 at age 19. It was the year she and her first husband, Salvatore “Sonny” Bono, released their big hit, “I Got You Babe.” From there, her career took off: Between 1965 and 1972, the couple recorded nearly a dozen Billboard Top 40 hits.
But the beginning of her career was also marked with low points. “There were certain parts that were really difficult and I was struggling,” she told Jimmy Fallon on an episode of “The Tonight Show” in 2016. “In the beginning, what happened … Sonny and I, we were really famous, and then our career just went off a hill. We had no money, we had no job and we owed the government $278,000. … We were broke a– broke.”
When their marriage ended in the mid-70s, Cher was deeply in debt. “I had no money and no way to live,” she told Vanity Fair in a 2010 interview.
In the late 70s, she started recording again. She also took on acting roles in plays and eventually films. Cher earned her first Oscar nomination in 1984 for Best Supporting Actress in “Silkwood.” Four years later, she won Best Actress for her performance in “Moonstruck.”
“You can just never give up,” Cher, now 72, told Fallon. “No matter what people say about you, and people have said some pretty terrible things about me, you just don’t give up.”
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