Tones and I has come a very long way from her days of busking and living in a van – it’s been revealed that the ‘Dance Monkey’ singer is reportedly worth a massive $35 million dollars.
The singer’s financial worth has debuted Tones and I, real name Toni Watson, on Australian Financial Review’s Young Rich List, along with 26 other Aussies who are under 40.
While the fact that a large chunk of her money comes from her popular hit ‘Dance Monkey’ much of Watson’s fortune actually comes from investments.
Dance Monkey reportedly earnt the singer around $12 million. When the song was released in 2019 it hit the number one spot in 20 different countries across the globe and went 16 x platinum in Australia.
A new initiative with streaming services paying out artists paired with record labels buying artists’ back catalogs, has been lucrative for Watson.
Investment-wise, in December 2020 Watson bought a spacious $3.3 million house in Byron Bay, and invested in 5.1 million abode near Frankston’s Lakewood Estate in the same year.
Since then, she’s purchased a $7.08 million mansion into a Mount Isa mansion and two Frankston abodes – one worth $720,000 and another worth $800,000.
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However, despite Watson’s sucesses – she certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Prior to hitting the big time, she worked tirelessly as a busker in Byron Bay while living in a van.
“I pretty much bought a van and took two weeks annual leave because I wasn’t 100% sure that anything would work,” she told ABC.
“I came up to Byron and on the first night of busking a guy walked past and he was like, ‘Here’s my card.’ A month later, I was like ‘what have I got to lose’.
“I took it really seriously, did it like a job. I wrote music Monday to Friday and then I’d busk all weekend. I did that for eight months.”
She told the Evening Standard in 2019, “I was living in my van, playing on the street for almost two years. When I started busking I had no money but I was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”
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