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18th May 2024
12:46pm BST
Sir Paul McCartney has officially become the first ever British billionaire musician, beating the likes of Sir Elton John and Harry Styles.
According to the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List, the 81-year-old has entered an upper echelon of wealth following his hugely successful 2023 Got Back Tour.
This, coupled with an increase in value of his back catalogue and Beyonce's cover of his iconic hit Blackbird, has propelled Sir Paul’s wealth by £50 million to hit the £1 billion figure.
The 81-year-old also benefitted from the re-release of two Beatles compilation albums last year - 1962-1966, The Red Album, and 1967-1970, The Blue Album.
In 2023, Now And Then was released as the final Beatles track, and reached number one in the UK charts.
It was written and sung by John Lennon in the late 1970s and later developed by the other band members – including George Harrison.
In 2021, Apple TV released a Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) directed docuseries called Get Back, which showed fans behind the scenes footage of the band writing and rehearsing 14 new songs in the studio.
The series has a total runtime of nearly eight hours, covering 21 days of studio time.
Sir Elton John, Lord Lloyd-Webber and David and Victoria Beckham were among some of the well-known names on the list, which has minimum wealth entry of £350m.
Gopi Hinduja and his family were crowned the richest people in the UK again, with their wealth hitting £37.2bn, the largest fortune ever recorded by the newspaper.
Also making the rich list was Harry Potter series author JK Rowling, who has an estimated wealth of £945 million.
The 58-year-old Scotland-based writer, who also penned the Fantastic Beasts screenplays and co-wrote the West End play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, also made the Sunday Times’ top 30 giving list.
Placed in the 22nd spot, the newspaper revealed she had donated £17.9 million to causes relating to children and women in the past 12 months.
Rowling has set up social deprivation trusts Volant and Lumos, which work to transform the lives of institutionalised children – along with beginning a women-only service, for those who have experienced sexual violence or abuse, called Beira’s Place in Edinburgh in December 2022.
Despite the whopping figures mentioned, Robert Watts, compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said this year's list suggested that "Britain’s billionaire boom has come to an end".
"Many of our home-grown entrepreneurs have seen their fortunes fall and some of the global super rich who came here are moving away," he said.
Mr Watts said that "thousands of British livelihoods rely on the super-rich to some extent".
"We’ll have to wait and see whether we have now reached peak billionaire, and what that means for our economy," he added.
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