6. Anna Nicole Smith And Howard K. Stern's "Wedding" Photos
People magazine September 2006
Reported Price Tag: $1 million
7. Sean Preston Federline's Baby Pictures
People magazine November 2005
Reported Price Tag: $500,000 (Tie)
8. Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt's First Couple Photos
US Weekly magazine April 2005
Reported Price Tag: $500,000 (Tie)
9. Angelina Jolie's First Visibly Pregnant Photos
People magazine January 2006
Reported Price Tag: $500,000 (Tie)
10. Anna Nicole Smith And Son Daniel Hours Before His Death
In Touch magazine September 2006
Reported Price Tag: $400,000
In a media marketplace heavy on celebrity news, stories are interesting, but pictures reign supreme. Want proof? Just look at the price tags.
The past few years have seen an explosive rise in the prices paid for exclusive celebrity photos. Driven by the public's desire for the nitty-gritty of celebrity life and celebrities' moves to control--and profit from--their images, the photos on our list are testament to a maturing market worth tens of millions.
In
Forbes' list of the 10 most expensive celebrity photos, we surveyed top-priced photos sales in the United States over the past 10 years (our estimates are not adjusted for inflation). Since the entertainment magazines are notoriously tight-lipped about such sales, we were forced to rely on published reports and only considered photo sales where information was available.
Coming in at No. 1: The $4.1 million
Peoplemagazine paid for the Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt baby photos in June last year. Second place went to Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's wedding photos, for which
OK! magazine reportedly paid $3 million in October 2005. Overall, Pitt and Jolie dominate the list, with four of the top 10 slots. Photos that chronicled the sad saga of Anna Nicole Smith accounted for another three.
So what makes a photo worth $500,000 as opposed to $10,000?
Interest from one of the big celeb weeklies--
People, In Touch, US Weekly or
OK!--is the most important thing. All of the photos on our list got their big payday from one of these four publications. These magazines are willing to cough up millions because exclusive photos can set themselves apart in a field thick with competition--in print, on the tube and on the Web. Is it worth it? They think so.
For Dan Wakeford, executive editor of
In Touch Weekly,there has to be some element of surprise, news and emotion involved for an image to spawn a bidding war between the entertainment outlets.
That's why he reportedly paid $400,000 for a shot of Anna Nicole Smith with her son Daniel taken hours before his death. "The death of Anna Nicole's son was the massive news story of the moment--it consumed the whole nation, and these pictures were so newsy and so emotive," he says. "This was every mother's worst nightmare, and through these pictures, America could empathize with what Anna Nicole was going through."
Or consider the photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie strolling along an African beach, which
US Weeklyreported shelled out $500,000 to print in 2005. Beyond the picturesque locale and its beautiful subjects, the shots were a revealing arc in a much-publicized love story. Though no signs of affection were present in the photos, they served as validation of a rumored romance between Jolie and her
Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star Pitt, who had at that time recently split from wife Jennifer Aniston.
In recent years, stars have increasingly found that one way to control the media maelstrom is to get in on the action. Bold-faced names like Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts and Britney Spears have bypassed the scores of paps, as they're often called, by tipping off a single photographer or hiring their own to capture big-ticket events such as nuptials and births. In addition to warding off droves of camera-clad onlookers at otherwise highly personal events, this type of arrangement guarantees both an image the stars approve of and a sum of money they pocket or, in many cases, donate to charity.
The most lucrative example to date came in the spring of 2006, when Jolie and Pitt peddled pictures of their biological daughter Shiloh Nouvel to
Peoplemagazine. Rather than pocket the winnings, the humanitarian duo donated the funds to a selection of charities serving African children. There ported sum: $4.1 million--and that doesn't include the $3.5 million that
Hello! magazine reportedly coughed up for British rights to the shots.
In early July,
OK! bought the pictures from the lavish Parisian wedding of
Desperate Housewivesstar Eva Longoria and NBA all-star Tony Parker. The exclusive set the celebrity weekly back a reported $2 million, placing the photos in a tie for third on our list.
Beyond the price tags, the types of pictures being snapped have changed in recent years as well. No longer reliant on staged moments, the paparazzi have moved to the streets (and the trees) to capture un-staged shots as well. Stars are just as likelyto find themselves taking out the trash or walking their dog as posing on the red carpet in today's tabloids.
Francois Navarre, who as the owner of X17 agency employs teams to trail a cadre of A-listers(think Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan) almost 24 hours a day, says this kind of extreme surveillance is necessary to beat the competition.
And though Ken Sunshine, a veteran publicist whose clients include Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio, calls the always-present flashbulbs"obtrusive to the point of insanity," readers are drawn to thereal-life element of these images, explains Harvey Levin, managing editor of
Time Warner's entertainment news Web site TMZ.com. "We're covering real people andnot plastic figures that have perfect hair, perfect makeup and perfect dresses on a red carpet, which is fantasy," he says. And who wants that anymore?
