Despite selling millions of records with Destiny’s Child - and as a solo artist - Kelly Rowland has been very open about almost going broke because she was carelessly overspending above her budget, which isn’t hard to believe when your best friend is Beyonce.
Being part of one of the biggest girl groups didn’t necessarily mean that Rowland, who is best pals with Queen Bey, was earning a lot of money, and because she was trying to keep up with a certain lifestyle, she almost ended up losing everything in the process.
The R&B songstress is known for working on shows such as The Voice Australia and The X Factor UK, where she earned a reported $2 million per season, and she’s also been successful as a solo artist, so how did Ms. Rowland almost go broke?
Kelly Rowland’s Spending Habits
With Destiny’s Child, Kelly Rowland released five studio albums in six years, selling over 60 million records and spanning a handful of hit songs including Bills, Bills, Bills, Say My Name, Soldier, Lose My Breath and Bootylicious, just to name a few.
The group’s fifth and final album, Destiny Fulfilled, in 2004, was an enormous success for Rowland, Beyonce and Michelle Williams, selling close to 500,000 copies in its first week and 3.5 million units as of October 2009.
Not to mention that the girls also embarked on a major concert tour, titled Destiny Fulfilled… and Loving’ It, to support the record, which grossed an additional $70 million during its five-month run between April and September 2005.
Yet with all the success, the Motivation hitmaker wasn’t seeing any drastic changes in her bank account, and that’s even though Destiny’s Child’s final album was one of the best-selling albums of 2005.
Once Destiny’s Child was over, it gave Beyonce the time to focus all of her attention on her solo career, with her second studio album, B’Day, hitting stores in 2006. Bey continued to dominate the charts with worldwide tours, high-budget music videos while partnering with companies for lucrative endorsement deals, such as L’Oreal and Nintendo.
Rowland, on the other hand, who released her sophomore album Ms. Kelly in 2007, didn’t see the same kind of support from fans with her project, which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 200 and only sold 86,000 copies in its first week.
The album wasn’t well-received with critics; it also didn’t produce any commercial songs, and subsequently saw Rowland part ways with Columbia Records.
The 39-year-old’s career had slowed down after Destiny’s Child, which meant less exposure and certainly less money, which Rowland said was hard to come to terms with considering how she had been living a certain lifestyle while traveling on the road as part of DC.
In an interview with pastor Erwin McManus in June 2020, the Down For Whatever star explained: “I watched my mum be a generous person. I watched her give her very last. I watched her give with faith, and I would be thinking ‘Where am I gonna eat?!’”
“Even going through my own time where there was a lot of – no one will believe this and it’ll actually be the first time I talk about it – where I almost lost everything because I was so busy trying to keep up.
“Whether it was the look, whether it was the wardrobe, whether it was the car, whether it was the place, whether it was the – you know what I mean? All that silliness.”
Rowland then went on to mention how a friend had told her she needed to give to others to receive favorable returns, even though she was running out of money herself at the time.
But she decided to take her pal’s advice, and within a week, her financial status was beginning to stabilize.
“Literally the following week, things just started to happen. Good things.”
It’s also fair to assume that Rowland probably felt pressure to live up to a certain lifestyle based on how fans viewed her - after all, she was part of one of the biggest girl groups alongside Beyonce, who is reportedly said to be worth $400 million.
Seeing someone like Bey pay millions of dollars for music videos, grossing hundreds of millions on tour, and purchasing real estate all over the United States could definitely make someone as close as Rowland is to Beyonce feel pressure to live up to those standards. too.
Fortunately enough, the mother-of-one has gotten much better with her finances over the years, and aside from her music career, she’s even fronted several endorsement campaigns with Caress and Jaguar, appeared on several talent shows as a judge - which earns her millions in revenue - so it doesn’t seem as if Rowland will run into any money problems again anytime soon.
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