Sir Paul McCartney becomes first UK billionaire musician

Musician saw his wealth increase by £50m last year

Sir Paul McCartney has become the first billionaire musician from the UK, according to the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List.

The Beatles legend, 81, has seen his wealth increase by £50m to hit the £1bn figure, and last claimed the musician top spot in 2022 when his fortune was put at £865 million.

His billionaire status follows his Got Back tour in 2023, as well as an increase in value for his back catalogue, and Beyoncé covering “Blackbird” on her recent album, Cowboy Carter.

Last year, the two Beatles compilation albums – 1962-1966, The Red Album, and 1967-1970, The Blue Album – were re-released featuring 21 newly added tracks.

A new song by the Liverpool-formed band, “Now And Then”, was put out in 2023 as the final Beatles track.

It reached No 1 in the UK charts, and was written and sung by John Lennon in the late 1970s and later developed by the other band members, including George Harrison.

The song was finished by the remaining Beatles Sir Paul and Sir Ringo Starr decades after the original recording thanks to audio restoration technology.

McCartney is the UK’s first billionaire musician (Getty Images)

Also making the rich list was Harry Potter series author JK Rowling, who has an estimated wealth of £945 million and also wrote the Cormoran Strike series under the name of Robert Galbraith.

The 58-year-old Scotland-based writer, who penned the Fantastic Beasts screenplays and co-wrote the West End play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, also made the Sunday Times’ top 30 giving list

JK Rowling rose to fame and fortune with the Harry Potter books (Getty Images)

Placed in the 22nd spot, the newspaper revealed she had donated £17.9m to causes relating to children and women in the past 12 months.

Rowling has set up social deprivation trusts Volant and Lumos, which work to transform the lives of institutionalised children – along with beginning a women-only service, for those who have experienced sexual violence or abuse, called Beira’s Place in Edinburgh in December 2022.

Sir Elton John, whose fortune has been estimated at £470m, has donated £26.6m over a one-year period to a variety of causes including HIV/Aids, medical, humanitarian and the arts.

Sir Elton John with his husband David Furnish (PA Archive)

The musician, who ended his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour last year by playing his last date in Stockholm, Sweden, set up the Elton John Aids Foundation in 1992, and outside of that work has formed the Elton John Charitable Trust, which donates to multiple causes.

He has also previously created the Elton John Sports Fund, and given scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music as well as raised money through work with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the Rainforest Foundation, and the Robin Hood Foundation.

Sir Elton came eighth in the rankings of the proportion of wealth given or generated for charity.

McCartney recently revealed that he spoke with Beyoncé on FaceTime, where she thanked him for writing ‘Blackbird’, explaining: “I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song.”

Paul McCartney congratulated Beyonce for her cover of ‘Blackbird' (Getty)

He old GQ in 2018 that he wrote the song after he “heard about the civil rights troubles” that were happening in America during the 1960s, predominantly in the deep south in states like Alabama and Mississippi.

“When I saw the footage on the television in the early Sixties of the Black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now,” he said.

“Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”