What was Johnny Hallyday's Net Worth?
Johnny Hallyday was a French singer and actor who had a net worth of $100 million at the time of his death. Johnny Hallyday was credited with bringing rock and roll music to France in the early 1960s. During his nearly 60-year career, he released 79 albums and sold over 110 million records, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. As an actor, Hallyday starred in such films as "À tout casser," "The Specialists," "Détective," "L'homme du train," and "Vengeance."
Estate Fight
Johnny was married to his last wife, Laeticia from 1996 to his death. After he died, Laeticia produced a will that was filed in Los Angeles, which the couple reportedly considered their primary residence. They owned estates in Los Angeles and Gstaad, Switzerland to avoid France's unusually high taxes.
Another potential reason Laeticia had Johnny file a will in Los Angeles was that in France you are not allowed to cut children out of your will. The American will that Laeticia produced upon Johnny's death cut his adult children out of the will entirely. His children filed a lawsuit that used Johnny and Laeticia's Instagram posts to show that they spent only a minimal amount of time in the United States and, at one point, even spent 8 months straight in France. The goal was to show that they were still essentially French residents and therefore a previous will that did not cut off the children should either supersede or a new division of assets, including the children, should be forged. An initial court agreed with the children, though Laeticia vowed to appeal. The two sides settled privately in mid-2020. As part of the settlement, Laeticia inherited the bulk of Johnny's estate value, estimated to be around $50 million, after paying $30 million in taxes and settling with the family.
Early Life
Johnny Hallyday was born as Jean-Philippe Smet on June 15, 1943 in Paris, France to French mother Huguette and Belgian father Léon. His father left the family shortly after that, and Hallyday was primarily raised by his aunt Hélène. When he got into singing, he took his stage name from his American cousin-in-law Lemoine Ketcham, an entertainer who performed under the name Lee Halliday.
Music Career
Inspired by Elvis Presley and other rock and roll musicians who emerged in the 1950s, Hallyday began singing rock and roll songs in French. In 1960, he released his debut single, "T'aimer follement," a French adaptation of Floyd Robinson's 1959 hit "Makin' Love." Hallyday subsequently released his debut studio album, "Hello Johnny." In 1961, he had a huge hit with his French-language cover of "Let's Twist Again," entitled "Viens danser le twist"; it topped nearly every singles chart in Europe. Hallyday scored another big hit in 1962 with his number-one single "Retiens la nuit." He became well-known in the United States after appearing alongside fellow singer Connie Francis on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in an episode taped at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Hallyday also staged numerous appearances at the Paris Olympia. Toward the end of the 1960s, he recorded a string of albums that had Mick Jones and Tommy Brown as musical directors. Hallyday collaborated with a surfeit of other artists during his career, including such French luminaries as Charles Aznavour and Michel Berger.
Overall, Hallyday released 79 albums during his nearly 60-year career, and sold over 110 million records worldwide. He sang an estimated 1,154 songs, performed over 500 duets with 187 artists, and played more than 3,250 live shows. Some of Hallyday's most renowned shows took place at the Stade de France, which he entered once by leaping from a helicopter above the stadium. Another of his legendary concerts took place in 2000 at the Eiffel Tower, where he broke ticket and attendance records by drawing an audience of 500,000, while nearly 10 million people watched the show live on French television. Five years after that, Hallyday scored his first number-one single in several years with "Mon plus beau Noël." In late 2007, he had major success in France and Belgium with his album "Le Cœur d'un homme," and in 2008 he had another huge hit with his album "Ça ne finira jamais." Hallyday continued to have number-one albums through 2015. His final album released during his lifetime was the live album "Rester vivant tour," which came out in 2016. A number of posthumous albums were released in the years after that.
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Film Career
Hallyday had his first major film role in the 1962 anthology film "Tales of Paris." The following year, he starred opposite his future wife Sylvie Vartan in "D'où viens-tu Johnny?" Toward the end of the decade, Hallyday starred in "À tout casser" and "The Specialists." In the 1970s, he starred in such films as "Point de chute" and "L'aventure, c'est l'aventure." Hallyday's credits in the 1980s included Jean-Luc Godard's "Détective," the science-fiction film"Terminus," and the Vietnam War film "The Iron Triangle."
In the 1990s, Hallyday appeared in such films as "La gamine" and "Why Not Me?" Early in the new millennium, he appeared in "Love Me," "L'homme du train," "Crime Spree," and "Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse." Hallyday went on to star in "Quartier V.I.P." in 2005 and "Jean-Philippe" in 2006, playing a fictional version of himself in the latter film. Closing out the decade, he had a supporting role in "The Pink Panther 2" and the lead role in "Vengeance." In 2014, Hallyday starred in Claude Lelouch's "Salaud, on t'aime"; he reunited with Lelouch for his final film role, in the 2017 comedy "Everyone's Life."
Personal Life and Death
Hallyday was married five times, and had multiple other partners as well. His first wife was singer and actress Sylvie Vartan, to whom he was wed from 1965 until their divorce in 1980. They had a son named David. Hallyday was next married to Babeth Étienne for 65 days. After that, from 1982 to 1986, he dated actress Nathalie Baye, with whom he had a daughter named Laura. Hallyday subsequently dated Gisèle Galante and Leah. He married his third wife, Adeline Blondieau, in 1990. They divorced in 1992 but remarried in 1994; they then divorced for a second time in 1995. Hallyday's fifth and final marriage was to Læticia Boudou from 1996 until his passing. They had two adopted daughters from Vietnam, Jade and Joy.
In 2009, Hallyday was diagnosed with colon cancer. He underwent successful surgery. Later in the year, Hallyday underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc, and suffered from complications. He was placed in a medically-induced coma so doctors could fix lesions that had formed from the surgery. Much later, on December 5, 2017, Hallyday died from lung cancer. He was interred on Saint Barthélemy in the French Caribbean.
