Cage purchased many homes, automobiles, and rare artifacts. However, in 2015, reports started to emerge about how he blew his $150 million fortune from 1996 to 2011.
The IRS placed tax liens on multiple properties he owned and then had Cage hand over more than $6 million for failing to pay his 2007 tax bill. Cage’s precarious financial situation led him to sell many of his personal belongings, including a treasured comic book.
As of May 2017, Cage is worth a reported $25 million.
Cage was once considered one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, earning $40 million in 2009 according to Forbes, although he failed to make Forbes’ Top 10 List in 2014.[195][196] In 2004 he bought a property on Paradise Island, Bahamas. In May 2006, he bought a 40-acre (16 ha) island in the Exuma archipelago, some 85 miles (137 km) southeast of Nassau and close to a similar island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.[197] He bought the medieval castle Schloss Neidstein in the Oberpfalz region in Germany in 2006 and sold it in 2009 for $2.5 million. His grandmother was German, living in Cochem an der Mosel.[198]
In August 2007, Cage purchased “Grey Craig”, a 24,000-square-foot (2,200 m2) brick-and-stone country manor in Middletown, Rhode Island. With an estate occupying 26 acres (11 ha), the home has 12 bedrooms and 10 full bathrooms and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. It borders the Norman Bird Sanctuary to the west. The sale ranked among the state of Rhode Island’s most expensive residential purchases.[199][200] Also in 2007, Cage purchased Midford Castle in Somerset, England.[201][202] Shortly after selling his German castle, Cage also put his homes in Rhode Island, Louisiana, Nevada, and California, as well as a $7-million island in the Bahamas, on the market.[203]
On July 14, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service filed documents in New Orleans in connection with a federal tax lien against property owned by Cage in Louisiana, concerning unpaid federal taxes. The IRS alleged that Cage failed to pay over $6.2 million in federal income tax for the year 2007.[204] In addition, the Internal Revenue Service had another lien for more than $350,000 in unpaid taxes dating from 2002 to 2004.[205] Cage filed a $20-million lawsuit on October 16, 2009, against his business manager, Samuel J. Levin, alleging negligence and fraud.[206] The lawsuit stated that Levin “had failed to pay taxes when they were due and had placed [Cage] in speculative and risky real estate investments ‘resulting in (the actor) suffering catastrophic losses.’”[206] Cage also faced separate lawsuits from East West Bank[207] and Red Curb Investments for unpaid, multi-million dollar loans.
Samuel Levin filed a counter-complaint and responded to the lawsuit in a filing stating that he warned Cage that he was living beyond his means and urged him to spend less. Levin’s filing states that “instead of listening to Levin, cross-defendant Cage (Coppola) spent most of his free time shopping for high ticket purchases, and wound up with 15 personal residences.” Levin’s complaint continued: “Likewise, Levin advised Coppola against buying a Gulfstream jet, against buying and owning a flotilla of yachts, against buying and owning a squadron of Rolls Royces, against buying millions of dollars in jewelry and art.”[208]
In his filing, Levin said that in 2007, Cage’s “shopping spree entailed the purchase of three additional residences at a total cost of more than $33 million; the purchase of 22 automobiles (including 9 Rolls Royces), 12 purchases of expensive jewelry, and 47 purchases of artwork and exotic items.”[208] One of those items was a dinosaur skull of a Tarbosaurus. After discovering that it was stolen, he returned it to the Mongolian authorities.[209]
According to Cage, he owned the “Most Haunted House in America”, a home located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.[210] Known as “The LaLaurie House” after its former owner Delphine LaLaurie, the house was foreclosed and sold at auction on November 12, 2009, along with another New Orleans property for a total of $5.5 million, in the wake of Cage’s financial problems.[211] His Bel Air home, which had six loans totaling $18 million on it, failed to sell at an April 2010 foreclosure auction despite an opening offer of $10.4 million, substantially less than the $35 million that Cage had originally tried to sell it for. The home, built in 1940 for $110,000 (equivalent to about $1.9 million in 2023), had been owned at different times by Dean Martin and singer Tom Jones.[195]
The home eventually sold in November 2010 for $10.5 million.[212] Another home in Nevada also faced foreclosure auction.[211] In November 2011, Cage sold his Action Comics #1 in an online auction managed by Heritage Auctions for a record-breaking $2.16 million (the previous record being $1.5 million), to assist paying his tax liens and other debts. Cage purchased the comic in 1997 for $110,000.[213] The comic had been stolen from him in 2000, and Cage had received an insurance payment on the item. In March 2011, it was found in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley and was verified by ComicConnect.com to be the copy sold to Cage previously.[214] Worth around $25 million by May 2017, Cage was reportedly “taking [film] roles left and right” in order to pay off his remaining debts.[215] By 2022, Cage confirmed that he had finally paid off his debts and intended to be more selective with his film roles.[216]
Nicholas Cage made a lot more than that and still got himself into trouble:
https://www.businessinsider.com/rich-famous-celebrities-who-lost-all-their-money-2018-5#nicolas-cage-was-one-of-hollywoods-biggest-stars-earning-40-million-in-2009-alone-but-also-one-of-itsbiggest-spenders-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Cage#Real_estate_and_tax_problems