Net worth: £195m ▲ £10m on 2020
Source of wealth: Music
Rank on the Music Millionaires list: 16 ▶ no change on 2020
The cheeky chap from Take That has released 12 studio albums since going solo, just one of which failed to top the UK charts. Many years of touring have also been enormously lucrative. Williams, 47, holds the world record for the most tickets sold in a day, with 1.6 million tickets together worth £80 million bought for his 2006 world tour within 24 hours of going on sale.
The singer, born in Stoke-on-Trent, has been quiet of late, releasing no new material during 2020. There was a large show at The Pointe in Dubai in January last year, but Covid-19 blighted his summer shows and his lucrative Las Vegas residency. The arrival of a fourth child, Beau, should have kept him busy. Williams married the American model and actress Ayda Field in 2010. The couple have homes in London, Los Angeles and Malibu.
Plans to build a basement gym and swimming pool at his west London home led to a five-year dispute with his neighbour, Jimmy Page (qv), the Led Zeppelin guitarist. Aged 16 at the time, Williams was Take That’s youngest member when he joined in 1990. He was the lead vocalist on Could it be Magic, Everything Changes and many of the boy band’s hits. However, his relations with other members soured and Williams left Take That in 1995. Fifteen years later he rejoined, recording new music and touring again with his old band mates, including Gary Barlow (qv).
Officially he remains part of Take That, although his profile and earnings are in a different league from the other members. We see £8.7 million of profits in the latest accounts of Williams’ company, You’re Not Famous. Another Williams album is due for release later this year and a biopic of his life, called Better Man and directed by The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey, could prove lucrative. Until then we put his fortune at £195 million, an increase partly justified by our view that his hefty back catalogue is much more valuable than a year ago.
Rich List 2021
View the full list to see where money was made and lost during the pandemic