The king of pop was also the king of profligacy, spending his final years fending off creditors in spite of prodigious earnings over four decades. Michael Jackson broke multiple entertainment earnings records and greatly supplemented this with an impulsive but extremely profitable 1985 investment in The Beatles' copyrights. But financial pressures likely forced him to agree to a new concert series while in frail health.

His debts have been estimated at $400m and an accountant testified in 2005 that he spent $20m-$30m more than he made each year. His biggest asset remains the catalogue, since merged with a larger one owned by Sony and valued at $1bn, which served as collateral for his loans.

He is hardly unique among celebrities whose money has started to run out, even if the sums are larger than most. One common way to evaporate wealth is divorce, and Jackson had two, both after the apex of his career. But he did not earn the nickname “Wacko Jacko” for nothing. Lavish and bizarre personal spending coupled with multiple lawsuits alleging paedophilia took their toll too.