Fame isn’t cheap: Along with their outsize incomes, celebrities also have enormous overhead: large homes, agents, managers, publicists, bodyguards, assistants and others who may or may not have their best interests at heart.
“In entertainment and sports, salaries are published. It’s like winning the lottery. People come out of the woodwork trying to sell you things,” says Ted Beck, president and chief executive of the National Endowment for Financial Education.
“Because you have achieved wealth based on talent, not business skills, you immediately become a target, especially if you are young. Trying to ferret out who is there to help you in a professional way is hard. You are inundated with people trying to share your success, not provide a service to you.”
Beck, whose organization makes grants, has experienced this on a smaller scale himself. “I’m always amazed how suddenly popular I get at meetings. When people start saying, ‘That was an intelligent comment,’ I immediately check my wallet,” he says.
