Highlights
- Despite being one of the best-selling female artists of all time, Toni Braxton has filed for bankruptcy multiple times due to her paltry royalty agreement with LaFace Records.
- Braxton only made $2,000 in royalties despite selling 40 million albums worldwide by 1998.
- Braxton’s financial troubles continued with canceled Las Vegas concerts and a lawsuit against her former manager.
Toni Braxton has been a successful musician from the moment she joined the scene. Her debut album was a critical and commercial sensation in 1993, and her subsequent releases have led to hits on the R&B and pop charts. Braxton has made a lot of money for a lot of her associates and industry friends, but it hasn’t always translated to personal wealth.
Braxton has filed for bankruptcy multiple times throughout her career, despite being listed as one of the best-selling female artists of all time. It’s a massive discrepancy that’s confused her fans, but it’s one that makes sense the more one looks at the singer’s business dealings and her paltry royalty agreement with LaFace Records.
Toni Braxton Filed For Bankruptcy In 1998 After Revealing She Only Made $2K In Royalties
Toni Braxton was unstoppable during the first decade of her career. Every single she put out charted on either the Billboard Hot 100 or R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, and she even played Belle in an acclaimed Broadway production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in 1998.
|
Toni Braxton’s Biggest Singles (Year) |
Hot 100 Position (According to Billboard) |
R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Position (According to Billboard) |
|
“Let It Flow” (1996) |
1 |
1 |
|
“You’re Making Me High” (1996) |
1 |
1 |
|
“Un-Break My Heart” (1996) |
1 |
2 |
|
“Breathe Again” (1993) |
3 |
4 |
|
“Another Sad Love Song” (1993) |
7 |
2 |
Things came to a screeching halt, however, when Braxton filed for bankruptcy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer was only making $2,000 in royalties despite having sold 40 million albums worldwide by 1998. She also attempted to sue Vista and LaFace Records after failing to renegotiate a second, more lucrative recording contract.
The lawsuit, which posited that Braxton should be given higher royalty rates, led to public derision and a particularly awkward appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in which she was accused of having frivolous spending habits.
Braxton recounted Winfrey’s hostile remarks during an episode of “MTV’s Behind the Music”:
“She was so frickin’ mean to me, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it because I loved her so much… She pretty much reprimanded me. [She said] ‘I hear you have Gucci flatware; I’m Oprah Winfrey and I don’t have Gucci flatware.’ She made me feel this big.”
Braxton’s lawsuit led Vista and LaFace Records to file a countersuit that claimed she was in breach of contract. The conflict was eventually settled out of court, according to BET, and the singer was given $22 million. She was, however, legally prohibited from talking about it for ten years.
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Braxton signed a second contract with Vista and LaFace Records in 2000, under which she released her third album “The Heat.” The album went 2x Platinum and spawned the Top 10 single “He Wasn’t Man Enough.”
Toni Braxton Received $1,900 From Her First Royalty Contract Despite Generating $170 Million In Album Sales
Toni Braxton’s self-titled album was an instant success upon release. The album spawned multiple hit singles and sold a whopping 1.7 million copies in its first week. The RIAA claimed that the album would eventually go 8x Platinum in the United States, and sell 10 million copies worldwide, making it one of the most successful debut albums of all-time. NBC expanded upon the album’s impressive statistics, noting that it generated roughly $170 million in sales.
Unfortunately, Braxton’s contract with LaFace Records led to her making very little from the album. During a 2023 interview with the New York Times, the singer admitted that she was inexperienced when it came to business, and wound up making a deal that only earned her $1,972 in royalties.
Braxton reflected on the contract during a 2018 profile with Billboard. She claimed to have hated the financial part of the industry at first, and quickly learned to educate herself upon realizing she should be earning more:
“When you first start, you’re so green. You just want to sing and show your talent. Then you find out it’s about more than talent — it’s also about the business. I hate that part of it. People like to think it’s about money, but it’s more about understanding that you have to educate yourself. And you can only learn through experience.”
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Despite only making a small percentage of her album sales, Braxton continued to be a major star for LaFace Records. Her 1996 album, “Secrets”, spawned the number one single “You’re Making Me High” and would eventually go on to sell 15 million copies worldwide.
Toni Braxton Filed For Bankruptcy Again In 2010 Due To The Cancelation Of Multiple Las Vegas Concerts
Toni Braxton seemed to be on more stable ground during the 2000s, but her financial troubles resurfaced. The singer planned to extend the residency she had at the Flamingo Las Vegas in 2007, but she was forced to cancel after she was diagnosed with microvascular angina. She put her own money into the Las Vegas shows, which she admitted was an unwise decision during an Essence interview.
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Braxton then filed a lawsuit against her former manager, Barry Hankerson. According to The Washington Post, the singer was seeking $10 million in damages due to Hankerson’s alleged “fraud, deception and double-dealing.” The suit was settled, but Braxton was forced to return a sizable $375,000 advance back to Hankerson and give him a percentage of the earnings from her 2010 album “Pulse.”
These two incidents led to Braxton declaring bankruptcy a second time in 2010. A report from Gingold Bankruptcy Law revealed that the singer owed her former and current record labels $16 million in royalty payments, and she owed the IRS property taxes, as well as three years of federal taxes. All things considered, Braxton owed $18.3 million and only had $1.6 million in assets.
Braxton ultimately lost the rights to 27 of her biggest songs, which means she doesn’t recieve royalties from their sales. She also told Sister to Sister Magazine that she doesn’t make a lot of money from her reality shows, despite the fact that “Braxton Family Values” ran for seven seasons:
“The reality show is not how I am really getting paid. Who said reality shows make you rich? That’s a misconception. I do one-off dates in Europe – because I’m much bigger in Europe than I am here in the States. I do little spot dates here and there and get paid really good, so I am surviving.”
Celebrity Net Worth reports that she has a net worth of $10 million, and Finurah noted that the singer has been able to earn $750,000 to $1 million per year from touring and releasing new music.
Source: NewsFinale
