Celebs Who Couldn't Afford Their Extravagant Homes

Most of us can't imagine netting millions of dollars per year, let alone spending so much of it that we find ourselves filing for bankruptcy. However, many celebrities, including Michael Jackson, Pamela Anderson, Mike Tyson, and Courtney Love have done just that, according to Walker & Walker. Indeed, some celebrities have found themselves attracted (a little too much) to lavish homes, stunning cars, and other luxuries like personal trainers, designer clothes, personal chefs, and more. Plus, very few famous folks have careers that span their entire lives; more often than not, the green eventually runs out, leaving these celebrities with slews of expenses they can no longer afford.

Of course, a home — especially if it costs millions of dollars — is often at the top of any person's list of expenses. But if a celebrity's checks stop coming in, banks often waste no time coming for what they are owed, just as they would for any "average" person. When that happens, foreclosure and an auction block are never far behind. To that end, these celebs had the unfortunate fate of losing their own homes, which were often outfitted with personal effects and luxurious details, to foreclosure and sums that amounted to far less than the homes were ever worth.

The 2000s were about as kind to former football quarterback Michael Vick as allegedly he was to the 70 dogs found on his property in 2007 that had been used in dogfighting. Near the end of his two-year jail sentence in 2009 for his role in funding a dogfighting ring, Vick's gated Atlanta lakefront home went up for auction in attempts to satisfy his enormous debts, reported ESPN. Vick lived there for just two years after buying it two years prior to that and while there, he implemented personal touches like an indoor golf simulator, a custom bar, and workout room. But by the time it hit the auction block, the only personal touch that remained was a carpet decorated with the number "7" — Vick's uniform number.

However, there was a somewhat happy ending to the sad saga: Vick's other home in Virginia (where the actual dogfighting took place) and its 15 acre property were purchased in 2011 by animal rights group Dogs Deserve Better, which turned it into a rehabilitation center for dogs who had been chained or penned their whole lives, according to ABC News. Dogs Deserve Better purchased the estate for $600,000, partly thanks to a 30% down payment raised through donations; they then raised further funds to install fencing and a brick-and-mortar dog facility, as the house itself was used for offices.

We fans think of Kristen Bell's sunny smile in comedies like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Bad Moms," and "Couples Retreat." However, that smile likely couldn't be found much in 2012 when Bell's Studio City home in Los Angeles, which she bought for $3.1 million on 2.5 acres six years prior, was foreclosed on, reported Variety. Just three years earlier, the home was photographed by InStyle, which said it was a 5,500-square-foot Mediterranean-style home surrounded by a property lush with lavender, bougainvillea, and jasmine. Los Angeles decorator Stacey Vuduris had been hired by Bell to give the space, built in 1969, new life.

However, the petite blonde bombshell certainly wasn't homeless following the foreclosure. According to E! News, Bell had moved out of the mansion before the sale and had been living with then-fiancé Dax Shepard at his three-bedroom Los Feliz ranch; he purchased the property in 2005 for $1.3 million, which is tucked behind high hedges and a double gate, continued Variety. In the meantime, though, Bell's Studio City home fell into disrepair as its gardens became overgrown and pool unkept.

Things weren't going well for legendary actor, producer, and director Burt Reynolds before his 2018 death when he was 82 years old. Just seven years prior to the star's passing, Merrill Lynch claimed that he hadn't made a payment on his Florida estate on the Hobe Sound for more than a decade, after he purchased it in 1980 with his then-wife actress Loni Anderson. According to a suit obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via ABC News) Reynolds owed Merrill Lynch $1.2 million. The Mediterranean-style home on four acres of property was worth $2.4 million at the time and had and a swimming pool, cinema, boat dock, and even its own private beach and private hair salon. But unfortunately, those millions were only a smidgen of what Reynolds had hoped to sell the home for when he put it on the market in 2009 for nearly $9 million (no buyers came to fruition).

A foreclosed home was just one of Reynolds' money problems in the years leading up to his death; Reynolds filed for bankruptcy in 1996 after a rough divorce from Anderson, as well as after investments in a local restaurant group didn't go the way he had hoped. He was also sued by his ex-girlfriend, and eventually settled that case out-of-court. Plus, through the late 2000s, Reynolds also owed California $225,000 in taxes which dated back to the time of his bankruptcy filing.

In the early 2000s, it seemed like actor Nicholas Cage was the star of every major blockbuster. In 2013, he was even named by Forbes as the fifth highest-paid actor in the country with earnings of $40 million, reported the Los Angeles Times. But around that same time, a slew of Cage's homes hit the auction block. It all happened on the heels of accusations that Cage's business manager took $20 million from the actor over a decade, which was detailed in a California lawsuit, according to CNN Money. The lawsuit said that the business manager "lined his pockets with several million dollars in business management fees while leading Cage down a path toward financial ruin."

But regardless of whose fault it was, Cage undoubtedly bore the brunt of the disaster as two of his New Orleans homes worth a total of $6.8 million were auctioned off in 2009. CNN Money said that Cage owed more than $150,000 in real estate taxes as well as $5.5 million in mortgage payments. Cage also faced the same problem in California. Five years after the auctioning of his New Orleans homes, his 12,000-square-foot Bel-Air Tudor mansion with a tower, custom wine cellar, home theater, Olympic-sized pool, and six bedrooms also went up for auction. It sold in less than a minute for $10.4 million, reported the Los Angeles Times, which is less than a third of what Cage had tried to sell the house for.

Rapper Chamillionaire stopped making payments on his 7,500-square-foot Houston, Texas mansion which eventually led to its 2010 foreclosure; however, according to him, it was actually a business decision. Chamillionaire told TMZ, "This house actually was my most expensive mortgage. And I decided to let that house go because the house ended up being worth nothing. When the market went down, the house went down too and it was just worth nothing. I felt like I didn't want to pay that much money a month for a house that I'm never at."

In 2006, Chamillionaire bought the $2.2 million mansion, reported Swamplot, which featured five bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, an ideal location on a corner lot that was more than an acre, a stunning pool, neutral colors, a chef's kitchen with an island, multiple fireplaces, and a Spanish style façade. It sold at auction for $1.8 million, which was $325,000 less than what Chamillionaire had paid for it.

Through the 1980s, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was nothing short of a legend as he went on to win almost 90% of all of the matches he ever fought. Of course, celebrity and money followed the wins, which soon led Tyson to buy a 13,500-square-foot mansion in Southington, Ohio. The property included five bedrooms, two kitchens, an enormous pool, and even three cages for his Bengal tigers, reported the Vintage News. However, just a few years later, it all came crashing down for Tyson, when he spent three years in prison after 1992 sexual assault charges. Then, shortly after, he also lost his moneymaker, his boxing license, after biting opponent, Evander Holyfield.

After more assault charges and a year-long prison sentence, Tyson declared bankruptcy in 2003 and was forced to sell the mansion to an entrepreneur. After several more years of various owners and years of abandonment, the once-lavish mansion was converted into a church called the Living World Sanctuary, reported the Sun.