What Is Ava Max's Net Worth?
Ava Max is an American singer, songwriter, and music video director who has a net worth of $4 million. Ava Max has released the albums "Heaven & Hell" (2020) and "Diamonds & Dancefloors (2023), and "Heaven & Hell" was certified Platinum or higher in nine countries. Her 2018 single "Sweet but Psycho" reached #1 on the charts in more than 20 countries, and it was certified 2× Diamond in Brazil and Diamond in France, Germany, and Poland. Ava is also known for singles such as "So Am I," "Salt," "Kings & Queens," "My Head & My Heart," and "The Motto" (with Tiësto), and she has performed on songs by Project 45, Le Youth, Vice, and Jason Derulo. Max directed her music videos for "EveryTime I Cry," "Christmas Without You," and "Dancing's Done (Visualizer Version)."
Early Life
Ava Max was born Amanda Koçi on February 16, 1994, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her parents, Andrea and Paul, fled Albania in 1991 after the fall of communism, and they spent a year living at a Paris church that was supported by the Red Cross. During their time in Paris, Andrea and Paul met a woman from Wisconsin who gave them passports to the U.S. They moved to Wisconsin, and during Max's childhood, they each worked multiple jobs without speaking English. Ava has an older brother, Denis, and her mother and father were a classically trained opera singer and a pianist, respectively. When she was 8 years old, Max's family moved to Virginia, where she began participating in Radio Disney singing competitions in Chesapeake. At the age of 10, Ava served as an opening act at Norfolk's NorVa entertainment venue, performing Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)." She frequently went to Florida to take part in singing competitions, and she started releasing music under the name Amanda Kay, including a self-titled 2008 EP. When she was 13, Max decided to begin using the name Ava because she "always hated [her] name growing up."
Max then moved to Los Angeles to further her music career, but she was continually rejected because of her young age. After a year in L.A., she moved to South Carolina and started writing songs about relationships. She attended Lexington High School while she lived in South Carolina, and she has said that she was bullied there. Ava returned to L.A. with her brother, Denis, when she was 17, and Denis became her manager. The arrangement didn't work out, and Max had a difficult time finding songwriters and producers. She subsequently went "down a really bad path" and started drinking at a young age. Around this time, Ava was sometimes living on just $20 a week.
Career
In 2013, Max released the song "Take Away the Pain." Her demos were rejected for many years, and Ava has said that she was sexually harassed several times. In 2014, she met Cirkut at a dinner party at the famed Chateau Marmont and sang "Happy Birthday" to the record producer, which led to them working together. The two wrote hundreds of songs together, and they released the song "Anyone but You" on SoundCloud during the summer of 2016. The song gained attention from record labels, and Max signed with Atlantic Records later that year at the age of 22 and started going by the name Ava Max. In 2017, she performed on the Le Youth track "Clap Your Hands." In April 2018, Ava released the single "My Way," and it reached #38 on the Romanian Airplay 100 chart. She collaborated with Gashi on the song "Slippin" and performed on the Witt Lowry track "Into Your Arms," then she released the single "Sweet but Psycho" in August 2018. "Sweet but Psycho" reached #1 in numerous countries, and it was certified Platinum or higher in 18 countries. Max released her debut album, "Heaven & Hell," on September 18, 2020, and it reached the top 10 on the charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K.
"Heaven & Hell" featured the singles "So Am I," "Salt," "Kings & Queens," "Who's Laughing Now," and "My Head & My Heart," which all went Platinum or higher in at least two countries. Ava collaborated with Alan Walker on the 2019 single "Alone, Pt. II," which was certified 4× Platinum in Norway and Platinum in Austria and Poland. The single was a top 10 hit in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Romania. In September 2019, she signed a joint co-publishing deal with Artist Publishing Group and Warner Chappell Music. In 2021, Max collaborated with Tiësto on the song "The Motto," which reached #1 in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Poland and went Platinum or higher in 13 countries. Ava released her second album, "Diamonds & Dancefloors," in January 2023, and it reached #2 on the "Billboard" Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, #5 on the Hungarian Albums chart, #6 on the Austrian Albums chart and Scottish Albums chart, and #8 on the German Albums chart and Swiss Albums chart. The single "Ghost" peaked at #12 on the "Billboard" Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and the album's title track reached #25 on that chart. In March 2023, Max performed at Sydney, Australia's WorldPride festival, and the following month, she embarked on her first headlining tour, "On Tour (Finally)."
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Personal Life
Ava has said that she is "100% Albanian," and she told the "Belfast Telegraph" that she "definitely wants to give back to the Albanian community when [she] can." She added, "It would be amazing to do a fundraising concert over there. It's important to give back." Max has stated that she can't read the Albanian language, but she can speak it. She has been outspoken about female empowerment, and during an appearance on "Billboard" magazine's "Pop Shop Podcast" in 2019, she stated, "Female empowerment is very strong in my life and that's how I am. I'm a very outspoken person and it shows in my music, especially my lyrics and in the album." In 2023, Ava told "Nylon" that she briefly dated Cirkut and that they have stayed friends since splitting up.
Awards and Nominations
In 2019, Max won the Breakthrough Award at the "Attitude" Awards, and "Sweet but Psycho" earned a Los 40 Music Award for Best International Song and was named one of the Top 20 Music Videos at the MTV Video Play Awards. Both "Sweet but Psycho" and "Kings and Queens" won iHeartRadio Titanium Awards for 1 Billion Total Audience Spins on iHeartRadio Stations. Ava has received six other Los 40 Music Award nominations, winning Best Spanish Video for "Tabú" (2020), Best International Video for "Maybe You're the Problem" (2022), and Best International Artist (2022). She won an MTV Europe Music Award for Best Push Act in 2019, and she earned a Swiss Music Award for Best Breaking Act International and a Top Hit Music Award for Best Female Artist Song for "Salt" in 2021. In 2019, Max received Teen Choice Award nominations for Choice Pop Song for "Sweet but Psycho" and Choice Summer Female Artist, and she earned People's Choice Award nominations for Soundtrack Song of the Year for "On Me" from "Scoob!" and New Artist of the Year in 2020. Ava has also received nominations from the "Gaffa" Awards (in both Denmark and Sweden), Global Awards, Gold Derby Music Awards, Hungarian Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, NRJ Music Awards, and Spotify Awards.
