With a Grammy-winning music career and a company worth more than $3 billion, it’s no wonder why fans want to know more about Dr. Dre’s net worth and how much he makes from his headphone brand, Beats by Dr. Dre.
Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Romelle Young, was born in Compton, California, on on February 18, 1965. After he graduated from high school, Dr. Dre became a DJ under the stage name, Dr. J, based on the nickname of his favorite NBA player Julius Erving. While at Eve’s After Dark, a club in Los Angeles that he DJ’d at, Dre met Antoine Carraby (a.k.a. DJ Yella), who later became a member of his rap group, N.W.A. Around this time, Dre also changed his stage name to Dr. Dre, a mix of Dr. J and his first name, Andre. N.W.A.—which consisted of Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, Arabian Prince, Eazy-E, Ice Cube and MC Ren—released their first album, Straight Outta Compton, in 1988. The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 1.5 million copies in the United States, certifying it three times platinum. Two years later, N.W.A. released their second album, which reached number one on the Billboard 200 and is certified platinum.
After N.W.A. disbanded in 1991, Dr. Dre founded his first record label, Death Row Records, with Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, the D.O.C. and Dick Griffey. The label represented artists like 2Pac and Snoop Dogg until Dre left the company in 1996. After he left Death Row Record, Dre went on to found Aftermath Entertainment, subsidiary of Interscope Records. The label represents artists like Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson Paak and Silk Sonic, and has worked with stars like 50 Cent, The Game and Busta Rhymes. In 2006, Dre launched his own headphone company, Beats by Dr. Dre, with Interscore Records founder Jimmy Iovine. In 2014, Apple acquired the company for $3 billion. “I’ve been living the American Dream for over 25 years – just being able to do what I do, be creative and make money out of it, it’s incredible,” Dre told The Guardian in 2011.
So what is Dr. Dre’s net worth? Read on for what we know about Dr. Dre’s net worth and how much he’s made from Beats, the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show and other career milestones.
How much did Dr. Dre make from the Super Bowl Halftime Show 2022?
Image: Brandon Clark/ABImages.
How much did Dr. Dre make from the Super Bowl Halftime Show 2022? Dr. Dre was one of five Halftime Show performers at the Super Bowl LVI between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals, alongside Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar. (Sean Forbes and Warren Snipe were also featured performers, while Mickey Guyton performed the national anthem.)
So…how much did Dr. Dre make as a 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show performer? The answer is nothing. According to National Football League spokesperson Joanna Hunter, Super Bowl Halftime Show performers aren’t paid but the NFL does cover the expenses for their performance. “We do not pay the artists,” Hunter told Forbes in 2016. “We cover expenses and production costs.” However, there is a limit to how much the NFL will pay. The Weeknd’s manager Wassim “Sal” Slaiby told Billboard in 2021 that the “Starboy” singer contributed $7 million of his own money to “make this halftime show be what he envisioned” when he performed at the Super Bowl LV.
According to Forbes, the total production cost for Beyoncé’s 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show performance was $600,000, though some reports claim that the number was $10 million. So why aren’t Super Bowl Halftime Show performers paid? With more than 100 million people who tune into the Super Bowl each year, the Halftime Show often serves as free promotion for its performers. According to Forbes, Bruno Mars’ 2012 album, Unorthodox Jukebox, soared from number seven to number three on the Billboard 200 after he performed at the Super Bowl in 2014. The magazine also reported that sales for Unorthodox Jukebox spiked by 92 percent to 81,000 after his Super Bowl Halftime Show performance. Beyoncé’s 4 also saw a similar spike of 59 percent after she performed the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2013.
According to Spotify, Shakira’s streams spiked by 230 percent, while Jennifer Lopez’s streams went up by 335 percent after they performed at the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2020. Justin Timberlake’s sales also rose by 534 percent after his performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2018, according to Billboard. Katy Perry’s manager, Steven Jensen, also told Forbes in 2015 that her Super Bowl Halftime Show performance “took her from being a big star to the stratosphere.” Perry’s manager also told the magazine that, as a result of her Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, Perry’s endorsement deals doubled.
Image: Courtesy of Beats by Dr. Dre.
What is Dr. Dre’s net worth?
What is Dr. Dre’s net worth? Dr. Dre’s net worth is $500 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. According to the site, Dre is the richest of the five performers from 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show. After him is Eminem, who is worth $230 million; Snoop Dogg, who is worth $150 million; Kendrick Lamar, who is worth $75 million; and Mary J. Blige, who is worth $20 million.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Dre made $20 million in 2007; $15 million in 2008; $13 million in 2009; $17 million in 2010; $14 million in 2011; $110 million in 2012; $40 million in 2013; $620 million in 2014; $33 million in 2015; $41 million in 2016; $32.5 million in 2017; and $35 million in 2018 for a total of $992.5 million in about 11 years. Dr. Dre’s net worth includes what he made from his three album, 1992’s The Chronic, 1999’s 2001 and 2015’s Compton, as well as what he earned with N.W.A, which he was a member of from 1987 to 1992. Dre was also the founder and president of Death Row Records, and is now the founder and CEO of Aftermath Entertainment, a subsidiary of Interscope Records, that includes acts like Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and Silk Sonic, and has represented artists like 50 Cent, The Game and Busta Rhymes.
Along with his music career, most of Dr. Dre’s net worth comes from his headphones company, Beats by Dr. Dre, which he founded in 2006 after he complained to Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine in a 2006 meeting about the quality of Apple’s Airbud headphones. “Apple was selling $400 iPods with $1 earbuds,” Iovine recalled to Inc. “Dre told me, ‘Man, it’s one thing that people steal my music. It’s another thing to destroy the feeling of what I’ve worked on.’” The first Beats by Dr. Dre headphones launched in 2008 with Monster Cable as is manufacturer. In 2010, phone company HTC purchased 50.1 percent of Beats for $309 million, valuing the company at $618 million. In 2012, HTC sold half of its stake back to Dr and Iovine (which explains the spike in Dr. Dre’s net worth that year) for $150 million, retaining a 25 percent stake. A year later, HTC sold the remaining 25 percent stake back to Iodine and Dre for $265 million. That same year, Beats announce that it had received a $500 million investment from private equity firm Carlyle Group, making the company valued at $1 billion. In 2014, Apple announced that it had acquired Beats for $3 billion and would pay $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in stock to the company. At the time of the sale, both Dre and Jimmy owned 25 percent of Beats, resulting in their stakes being worth $750 million. Dre also received $100 million worth of Apple shares, which are worth around $200 million today, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
In an interview with British GQ in 2021, Dre opened up about how he became a multi-millionaire. “I don’t remember not having hustle,” he said. “I would hustle if I was cutting grass, just to be able to buy shoes. I came from a place where you had to go out and do your thing if you wanted to have those nice things. It was never going to come to you; you had to go out and fight for it.” He credited Iovine for his business success. “Yeah, I’m sitting next to him,” he said. I never liked the business side of things, I just knew I had to take care of it. Beforehand, I had to figure it out myself. Teach myself how to create, be a DJ, how to engineer, and so on.”
Image: Taylor Trade Publishing.
For more about the Super Bowl, football fans can check out When It Was Just a Game: Remembering the First Super Bowl
by Harvey Frommer. The best-selling book delves into the history of the first Super Bowl, which was originally known as the AFL-NFL Championship Game. (The term “Super Bowl” was coined only in its third year.) The debut game, between the winning Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, was played in front of only 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum—an audience well below the stadium’s capacity. Harvey Frommer, a sports historian and reporter, puts the tale of that momentous game together using oral history, gathered by hundreds of interviews with players, coaches, media and spectators alike.
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