Cage’s fallen empire

last updated 8 January 2015

Nicolas Cage has burned through a fortune, said Emma Brockes in The Guardian (U.K.). The actor is estimated to have blown $150 million over the past decade, spending wildly on a fleet of luxury cars, four yachts, and a portfolio of multimillion-dollar properties that included castles in England and Germany, mansions in New Orleans, Rhode Island, and Bel Air, and an island in the Bahamas. Why did he buy so many houses? “I had to put the money somewhere, and I got caught up in that bubble that exploded,” explains Cage, 49. “I didn’t trust stocks and I didn’t trust leaving it in the bank. I believed in real estate. So now I’m working through that.” Hit with a bill for $14 million in unpaid U.S. taxes in 2009, he sold off many of his properties, mostly at a loss. Since then, Cage has worked almost constantly, making 15 movies in the past four years. He gets upset when critics accuse him of saying yes to any role just to pay off his debts. “I’m one of those Americans who believes in working,” he says. “If you’ve made mistakes in the past, you don’t just roll over or cave in, you find a way through it. But in film acting, for some reason you get criticized for working.”