Millionaires and Billionaires Who Lost Everything

Becoming rich is one thing, even a good thing. But knowing how to stay rich is another thing altogether. History remembers many such great men who had great financial success but could not make it last long enough. In most of the cases, it is seen that over confidence and ego have come along with the wealth to the person and the achieved power often leads to a setback condition.

Here is a list of 5 different people who suffered epic losses in one lifetime.

M.C Hammer

Most of the early 90s people know the ‘Hammer Story’. He earned a mere sum of $ 30 million during the peak of his career, but then from there, everything was downhill for him. He used up all his savings in a fraction of few days and before you know it, he was bankrupt. Hammer spent half of his earnings on friends, family, car, expensive toys and bad real estate investments. However, during his day of bankruptcy, no one was there to help him out and so he lost it all.

George Foreman

Former American Boxer, former two time heavy weight champion, and an Olympic gold medalists; George Foreman is someone you’d think would be a happy soul. Well, he wasn’t! After the loss against two time heavy weight champion Muhammad Ali in the legendary fight dubbed ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, George Foreman was almost broke. With such heavy losses and his bank balance reaching almost zero, Foreman was forced to return to the ring at the age of 45.

Johnny Unitas

Johnny Unitas was first signed to play as a quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts for a total of $7,000 (which amounts to $60,000 in today’s times). After that he went to play for the San Diego Chargers for $250,000 ($ 1.3 million in today’s dollars) with an additional bonus of $ 175,000 (that amounts to $ 921,812 today). This money he lavishly spent on real estates, restaurants, and various industries. However, each of his investments failed miserably and soon he became bankrupt. A stroke of bad luck, we say.

Sean Quinn

This Irish business man was the richest person in Ireland back in 2008 with a net worth of $ 6 billion. However, a single bad decision brought him down to his knees in 2011. Quinn invested 25% of his family’s wealth in Anglo Irish Bank of about $ 2.8 billion and the made a grave mistake of borrowing the money from his own insurance company. So during the recession, Anglo Irish Bank collapsed and with it Quinn, as he was submerged in waves of debt he could not pay.

Jordon Belfort

Belfort had the life of a king. Expensive yachts, private jets, champagne, omen, cocaine and making $ 250 million a year by floating shady deals to clients from his boiler room Stratton Oakmont. However he did not get to spend his fortunes well. Before he knew it, FBI was on to him and forced him to pay hundreds of million dollars he owed to other stockbrokers. He was even sent to prison for a good 22 months.