Avicii
Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii, was a Swedish DJ, remixer, record producer, musician, and songwriter who specialized in audio programming, remixing, and record producing. At the age of 16, Bergling began posting his remixes on electronic music forums, which led to his first record deal.
Avicii, whose real name was Tim Bergling, reached almost absurd levels of fame, success, wealth and adoration. Sadly, his success came a heavy cost of anxiety, depression, heavy alcoholism, and ultimately suicide. He was only 28 when he died from self-inflicted wounds from broken glass on April 20, 2018.
The Grammy-nominated artist enjoyed great financial success, regularly earning tens of millions of dollars per year and landing on many of Forbes highest earning lists, especially during his peak from 2014 through 2016. Celebrity Net Worth reported his net worth when he died to be around $50 million. His Hollywood Hills mansion sold for $17.5 million earlier this year. He signed lucrative endorsement deals with Volvo and Ralph Lauren.
Yet Avicii was never motivated by money. He said during an interview in 2013, “I discovered when I started making money that I didn’t really need it.” Instead, he turned towards charitable goals, saying, “When you have such an excess of money you don’t need, the most sensible, most human and completely obvious thing is to give to people in need.”
These weren’t just words to the famous DJ. In 2012, he embarked on a tour called “House for Hunger” and donated all of his income from the tour to the charity, Feeding America, to combat hunger. He added another $1 million afterwards, along with an additional one million euros to a Swedish “hunger aid” charity a year later. And these were just some of the publicly-reported gifts.