Bruce Springsteen: “I’m not a billionaire”
In August the financial magazine Forbes reported that the capital of Bruce Springsteen had surpassed the 10-figure threshold, stating that: “Despite his discomfort with the trappings of wealth, the Garden State’s original guitar hero has amassed a substantial fortune over six decades by singing about his blue-collar roots” (the American working class ). Forbes would have conservatively estimated his treasure at $1.1 billion.
The business magazine admitted that no one from the musician’s organization confirmed the valuation, which was reached three years after the musician sold his rights for a reported $500 million.
In a new interview with the Telegraph, Springsteen said: “I’m not a billionaire. I wish I was, but they got it wrong. I spent too much money on superfluous things.”
He added that, after difficult beginnings before breaking through and achieving “fortune”, he earned his money by “working hard”. And he cautioned that if a musician’s career becomes all about money, “that’s usually where people fall apart.” From his point of view it was about protecting and nurturing his artistic abilities, arguing that: “If I failed at this, I would have failed at everything, in my opinion.”
In the same interview, Springsteen talked about his upcoming biopic, in which he will be played by the actor Jeremy Allen White. “It was enough for me to see him in “The Bear” to understand that he was the right person, because he had a certain kind of “inner life”, but also a little bit of swagger,” he said.
He also reiterated his current political thinking, which is hardly a mystery, having recently described Donald Trump as “an American tyrant”, saying: “I think in the United States there is enormous anxiety… about losing things that are dearest to us; the danger of losing democracy, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power”.
“And this – referring to Trump – is a man who doesn’t engage in any of those things. He’s an insurrectionist. He led a coup against the United States government, so he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the presidency.”
And he concluded: “Will you sleep well knowing that the nuclear codes were given to Donald Trump? No, no one will.” Codes which, moreover, in his previous mandate, were already in the hands of the American tycoon.