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Tom Hanks paid out of his own salary to save one scene in Forrest Gump. That scene helped the movie make $678 million.
This is Tom, in his own words.
He was due $7 million for the film. Paramount didn’t believe in it. Before giving it the green light, the studio wanted $10 million cut from the budget.
One of the first things on the chopping block: Forrest’s run across America.
Then Hanks got a call. Director Robert Zemeckis wanted to come to his house.
“I thought, I am so fired now.”
Instead, Zemeckis had a plan. They would pay for the run themselves, out of their own salaries.
“We will make them give it back to us on the back end.”
In some of those running shots, it isn’t even Tom. It’s his brother Jim, who looks almost exactly like him.
The movie made more than $678 million worldwide.
Reports put Hanks’s final payday somewhere between $40 million and $70 million.
The scene the studio wanted to cut became the most famous part of the film.
Would you have bet your own paycheck on a scene your boss said nobody wanted?
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James Brown left a $90 million estate, and the woman who raised his son was locked out of their home with six padlocks.
This is Tomi Rae, in her own words, days after his death.
James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006. He was 73.
She had been with him for 10 years. They had a five-year-old son.
She drove to the house they shared. The guard who used to hug her and call her “Ms Brown” stopped her at the gate.
“Miss Rae, you cannot go in there.”
If she tried to go inside, she’d be arrested.
She said James had promised her 17% of the estate and the right to live in the house for as long as she wanted.
What followed was 15 years of lawsuits over his money. More than a dozen cases.
In 2020, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled she had never legally divorced her previous husband. Which meant she had never legally been James Brown’s wife.
No marriage. No share.
In 2021, his estate finally sold for an estimated $90 million. Most of it will go to scholarships for children, as Brown wanted. His grandchildren’s trust will get no more than $2 million.
The Godfather of Soul left behind a fortune, a widow who wasn’t a widow, and six padlocks on a gate.
Was she a wife who lost everything, or a woman who was never supposed to get anything?
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James Brown left a $90 million estate, and the woman who raised his son was locked out of their home with six padlocks.
This is Tomi Rae, in her own words, days after his death.
James Brown died on Christmas Day, 2006. He was 73.
She had been with him for 10 years. They had a five-year-old son.
She drove to the house they shared. The guard who used to hug her and call her “Ms Brown” stopped her at the gate.
“Miss Rae, you cannot go in there.”
If she tried to go inside, she’d be arrested.
She said James had promised her 17% of the estate and the right to live in the house for as long as she wanted.
What followed was 15 years of lawsuits over his money. More than a dozen cases.
In 2020, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled she had never legally divorced her previous husband. Which meant she had never legally been James Brown’s wife.
No marriage. No share.
In 2021, his estate finally sold for an estimated $90 million. Most of it will go to scholarships for children, as Brown wanted. His grandchildren’s trust will get no more than $2 million.
The Godfather of Soul left behind a fortune, a widow who wasn’t a widow, and six padlocks on a gate.
Was she a wife who lost everything, or a woman who was never supposed to get anything?
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Michael Oher's life became a $300 million movie. He says the movie got his story wrong.
The Blind Side showed a rich family saving a homeless kid.
He says when he moved in with the Tuohys, he was already an All-American football player. He moved in a couple of weeks before his senior year of high school.
"I'm waiting on my savior. I'm waiting on this quick fix. That was never my mentality."
Then in 2023 he found out the family never adopted him. At 18 he had signed papers that gave them legal control over his business deals.
A judge ended the arrangement after nearly 20 years. The Tuohys deny doing anything wrong.
In the video below he tells it himself.
Was The Blind Side a true story or a sales pitch?
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LeAnn Rimes was 17 when she sued her own father. She said he and her ex-manager took more than $7 million of her money in five years.
She was 12 when her parents signed her record contract.
At 13 she released Blue. It sold about 6 million copies. At 14 she became the youngest person ever to win the Grammy for Best New Artist.
Her father was her manager. Over three and a half years she played around 500 shows.
In May 2000 she and her mother went to court. The lawsuit claimed her father and his co-manager had taken more than $7 million from her earnings, including cash kept in a safe on her tour bus.
Her father countersued and accused her of overspending.
The case was settled in 2002. The terms were never made public.
Years later she said: “For me it became a business and I ended up not having parents.”
In the video below she talks about her angry father, her depressed mother, and growing up when one mistake could cost millions.
She made peace with her father before her wedding. She said she never hated him. She just wanted a dad.
Should a parent ever be allowed to manage their child’s money?
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Leonard Cohen’s manager was also his ex-lover. She left him with $150,000 out of his life savings, and he said he was still fond of her.
Her name was Kelley Lynch. For 17 years she ran his business and managed his money.
In the mid-1990s Cohen walked away from music. After years of touring and drinking, he went up a mountain near Los Angeles and lived in a Zen monastery, working as the cook for his teacher.
While he was up there, the money was leaving his accounts.
He believed his retirement savings were worth more than $5 million. When he checked, about $150,000 was left. He was around 70.
I have no money left, he told Maclean’s.
He sued. In 2006 a court ordered Lynch to pay him $9.5 million. His own lawyer said they would probably never collect it.
In the video below a reporter asks him about it. You recently lost all your money.
He doesn’t recommend it as a spiritual discipline. But if it happens to you, he says, it’s very interesting.
It was everything, he says. And about her: she was my dear friend, and I’m still rather fond of her.
Then he tells the part that mattered most. His son said: Dad, do what you have to do, but don’t do it for us. We’ve had a good life and we can take care of ourselves.
It’s very rare that a parent gets to hear that, Cohen says. That’s almost worth the whole thing.
In 2008, at 73, he went back on tour for the first time in 15 years. He kept touring for years after that.
He died in 2016 at 82. Lynch was later convicted of harassing him.
Would you forgive someone who took everything you had saved?
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Leonard Cohen’s manager was also his ex-lover. She left him with $150,000 out of his life savings, and he said he was still fond of her.
Her name was Kelley Lynch. For 17 years she ran his business and managed his money.
In the mid-1990s Cohen walked away from music. After years of touring and drinking, he went up a mountain near Los Angeles and lived in a Zen monastery, working as the cook for his teacher.
While he was up there, the money was leaving his accounts.
He believed his retirement savings were worth more than $5 million. When he checked, about $150,000 was left. He was around 70.
I have no money left, he told Maclean’s.
He sued. In 2006 a court ordered Lynch to pay him $9.5 million. His own lawyer said they would probably never collect it.
In the video below a reporter asks him about it. You recently lost all your money.
He doesn’t recommend it as a spiritual discipline. But if it happens to you, he says, it’s very interesting.
It was everything, he says. And about her: she was my dear friend, and I’m still rather fond of her.
Then he tells the part that mattered most. His son said: Dad, do what you have to do, but don’t do it for us. We’ve had a good life and we can take care of ourselves.
It’s very rare that a parent gets to hear that, Cohen says. That’s almost worth the whole thing.
In 2008, at 73, he went back on tour for the first time in 15 years. He kept touring for years after that.
He died in 2016 at 82. Lynch was later convicted of harassing him.
Would you forgive someone who took everything you had saved?
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Casey Kasem’s widow controlled a $100 million fortune, and his own children had to knock on her door just to see their dying father.
This is his daughter Kerri and his son, live on CNN.
For decades, Casey Kasem counted down America’s hits on American Top 40. He was also the voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo.
His children from his first marriage saw him every week and talked to him every day.
Then his second wife, Jean, stopped bringing him over.
“We tried everything. My sister went there, knocked on the door, and she was escorted off the property.”
Without her permission, they couldn’t go inside. “We’ll be arrested.”
His son flew in from Singapore and got five minutes with his father.
“Just in case that was the last time I would ever see him.”
When Casey Kasem died, the fight moved to the courtroom. His three adult children sued his widow. She sued them back.
The prize: an estate estimated at $80 to $100 million.
The man who spent decades connecting America to the music spent his last months cut off from his own children.
Was Jean protecting her husband, or protecting what he was about to leave behind?
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Evander Holyfield beat Mike Tyson twice and made over $230 million. He couldn't stop his own sister from mortgaging his house.
It was one of the biggest houses in Georgia. 109 rooms.
She took out a second mortgage on it behind his back.
He's the youngest in his family. His older sisters were almost like mothers to him.
"After my mama passed, now everybody want to steal from me."
He refused to send her to jail. He said he made too much money to stoop that low.
The bank took the house. It sold at auction for about $7.5 million. Rick Ross ended up buying it.
In the video below he tells it himself.
Would you have pressed charges against your own sister?
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Burt Reynolds went from $60 million to $11.2 million in debt, and he still blamed his wife.
This is Burt at 79, in his own words.
In the late ’70s, he was the biggest movie star in America. By his own estimate, his net worth topped $60 million.
In 1988, he married Loni Anderson. In the prenup, he listed his net worth at $15 million.
Five years later, she filed for divorce.
The court ordered him to pay her $15,000 a month and keep paying the mortgage on their $2 million home.
In 1996, Burt Reynolds filed for bankruptcy. $6.65 million in assets. $11.2 million in debts.
Twenty years later, he still couldn’t let it go.
He says she maxed out a $45,000 credit card in half an hour.
“She liked to spend money. Mine.”
“I couldn’t afford her.”
And when people called him broke, he got angry: “I’m not bankrupt. If I was bankrupt, I wouldn’t have my red tie on.”
Was it the divorce that cost him his fortune, or the man who spent it long before she showed up?
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Floyd Mayweather’s father put the gloves on him at five. At the biggest fight of his life, he asked his son’s opponent for $2 million.
This is Floyd Jr. in 2019, in his own words.
Floyd Sr. was his first trainer and his first manager. He managed his son without taking a cut.
Around 2000, Floyd Jr. fired him as manager. The new manager took 20% of a $12 million HBO deal.
“Who likes somebody taking advantage of their kid?” his father said.
Then came 2007. Floyd Jr. vs. Oscar De La Hoya, the biggest fight in the world.
Floyd Sr. had been training De La Hoya for six years. He said he would train him against his own son, for $2 million.
De La Hoya offered $500,000, plus $500,000 more if he won.
No deal. The father ended up in neither corner.
His son made $25 million that night.
Years later, Floyd Sr. explained it like this: “People get money, man, things change. I don’t care whether it’s your father, mother, brother, sister.”
In 2019, his son inducted him into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.
“I never got into the sport for the money. I got into the sport because this is what my dad loved.”
Was the $2 million a betrayal, or just a father who knew exactly what his son was worth?
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Floyd Mayweather’s father put the gloves on him at five. At the biggest fight of his life, he asked his son’s opponent for $2 million.
This is Floyd Jr. in 2019, in his own words.
Floyd Sr. was his first trainer and his first manager. He managed his son without taking a cut.
Around 2000, Floyd Jr. fired him as manager. The new manager took 20% of a $12 million HBO deal.
“Who likes somebody taking advantage of their kid?” his father said.
Then came 2007. Floyd Jr. vs. Oscar De La Hoya, the biggest fight in the world.
Floyd Sr. had been training De La Hoya for six years. He said he would train him against his own son, for $2 million.
De La Hoya offered $500,000, plus $500,000 more if he won.
No deal. The father ended up in neither corner.
His son made $25 million that night.
Years later, Floyd Sr. explained it like this: “People get money, man, things change. I don’t care whether it’s your father, mother, brother, sister.”
In 2019, his son inducted him into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.
“I never got into the sport for the money. I got into the sport because this is what my dad loved.”
Was the $2 million a betrayal, or just a father who knew exactly what his son was worth?
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Beyoncé's father spent nearly 20 years turning her into one of the biggest stars in the world. She was the one who ended it.
He managed her first group, Girls Tyme. Then Destiny's Child. Then her solo career.
In 2011 she announced he was no longer her manager.
She told Oprah it was one of the hardest things she's ever done. "At some point you have to be the adult that your father has raised you to be."
She said they both knew it was time a few years before she did it.
She still loves him. She said making her documentary helped heal their relationship as father and daughter.
In the video below she tells it herself.
Could you let your own parent go to protect your career?
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Steve Jobs asked his old boss for $50,000 in exchange for a third of Apple. His old boss passed, and laughed about it on camera years later.
The boss was Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari.
In the early 1970s he hired a 19-year-old Steve Jobs as a technician. In the video below he remembers finding Jobs curled up asleep under his desk in the morning. He also says Jobs didn’t smell very good.
Bushnell called him difficult. Often the smartest person in the room, and he made sure everyone knew it.
Then Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak started building computers. They needed money. Jobs went to the man who had given him his first real job.
A third of Apple for $50,000.
Bushnell said no.
He did help in another way. He introduced Jobs to an investor, who led him to Mike Markkula, the money that actually got Apple off the ground.
In 2025 Fortune did the math. At Apple’s market value, a third of the company would be worth close to $1 trillion on paper.
At CES in 2014, Bushnell was talking about his own mistakes. He’d lost a lot of money on robots, years too early.
Then, almost in passing: Oh, I also turned down a third of Apple Computer for fifty thousand dollars. That was a mistake.
A year later he told an interviewer he had no regrets. He had a wonderful family, a great wife, and he wasn’t sure he’d have had all that if he’d been unbelievably rich.
Maybe both are true.
Would you rather have the trillion or the life he says he has?
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Larry King’s wife heard “I love you” on his deathbed, found a $2 million will without her name, and took it to court.
This is Shawn King, a few weeks after he died.
They were married in 1997. 22 years, two sons.
His last message to her, over FaceTime from the hospital: “I love you. Take care of the boys.”
In 2019, Larry filed for divorce. It was never finalized.
“In my heart, I didn’t think it was really going to happen.”
Two months after filing, Larry wrote a new will by hand. $2 million, split equally between his five children.
Under his 2015 will, Shawn was the executor and sole trustee of the family trust. The handwritten one didn’t mention her at all.
She told the court the handwritten will couldn’t replace the official one. She also claimed Larry had a secret account and used it to give his son Larry Jr. more than $266,000 without her knowing.
On camera, she remembers a love that never ended.
On paper, he left her nothing.
Which one tells the truth about a marriage: the last words, or the last will?
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Larry King’s wife heard “I love you” on his deathbed, found a $2 million will without her name, and took it to court.
This is Shawn King, a few weeks after he died.
They were married in 1997. 22 years, two sons.
His last message to her, over FaceTime from the hospital: “I love you. Take care of the boys.”
In 2019, Larry filed for divorce. It was never finalized.
“In my heart, I didn’t think it was really going to happen.”
Two months after filing, Larry wrote a new will by hand. $2 million, split equally between his five children.
Under his 2015 will, Shawn was the executor and sole trustee of the family trust. The handwritten one didn’t mention her at all.
She told the court the handwritten will couldn’t replace the official one. She also claimed Larry had a secret account and used it to give his son Larry Jr. more than $266,000 without her knowing.
On camera, she remembers a love that never ended.
On paper, he left her nothing.
Which one tells the truth about a marriage: the last words, or the last will?
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Brian Wilson’s father sold his life’s work for $700,000. Brian still just wanted to ask him: “Dad, what do you think of our albums?”
This is Brian talking about his dad, in his own words.
Murry Wilson managed The Beach Boys in the early years. Brian says he grew up afraid of him.
Asked how he got away from that, Brian said: “The Beach Boys came along.”
But in 1969, Murry sold the company that owned Brian’s songs. The price was $700,000.
Twenty years later, Brian took it to court. He argued his father had sold the catalog fraudulently. In 1992, he won a $10 million settlement.
Then his own cousin, Beach Boys singer Mike Love, sued him for credit on 35 songs. In 1994, a jury sided with Love. He got $5 million and his name on the songs.
A father who sold his songs. A cousin who took him to court over them.
And still, when Brian talks about his dad, he doesn’t mention the money once. He says his father “wrote some very pretty songs.”
Was it the money he lost, or the approval he never got?
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Dave Chappelle walked away from a $50 million contract and flew to Africa. Years later he joked he never quit, he's just 7 years late for work.
In 2005 Chappelle's Show was the biggest thing on TV. Comedy Central gave him a contract for two more seasons worth $50 million.
Halfway through filming season 3, he left. He got on a plane to South Africa and disappeared.
Rumors exploded. Almost everyone thought he'd lost his mind.
Years later he sat down with David Letterman and did the math. Say he has $10 million in the bank. The difference in lifestyle from $50 million is tiny.
Then the punchline: the only difference between $10 million and $50 million is an astounding $40 million.
His friends try to cheer him up by saying at least he kept his integrity. He says he'll go home and make his kids some integrity sandwiches.
Letterman asked if the $40 million would have made him happier. Chappelle: "I think I might be a happier person."
Would you have taken the $50 million?
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Sharon Osbourne’s father managed Black Sabbath. When she took Ozzy from him, he didn’t speak to her for 20 years.
Her father was Don Arden. In the music business they called him Mr Big, the English Godfather and the Al Capone of Pop.
He was known for threats, intimidation and deals nobody else would dare to make. Sharon grew up in that world and went to work for him straight out of school.
In 1979 Black Sabbath fired Ozzy Osbourne. Sharon started dating him and took over his management herself, away from her father.
Her father was furious. They stopped speaking.
Sharon rebuilt Ozzy from scratch. A new band, a solo career, and later Ozzfest. They married in 1982.
Years later she told The Guardian the best lesson she ever had was watching her father ruin his own business.
In 2001 she said her father had never seen her children, and he never would.
Then Ozzy stepped in. In the video below he says he told Sharon to stop pretending she hated her dad and pick up the phone.
Her father tells the rest. When she finally came to see him, the first thing she called him can’t be repeated here.
But they hugged. And for the first time, he met his grandchildren, Jack and Kelly, on camera for The Osbournes.
We never spoke a word for 20 years, he says. Now we’re talking. I can’t believe it.
A few years later he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Sharon paid for his care until he died in 2007.
Ozzy died in 2025. The man her father lost became the reason she got her father back.
Would you forgive a parent after 20 years?
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Gary Coleman earned up to $80,000 a week at 14. To get some of it back, he had to sue his own parents for $3.8 million.
This is Gary in 1993, in his own words.
He was the star of Diff’rent Strokes. “What you talkin’ about, Willis?” was everywhere. At his peak, he was paid $100,000 an episode.
He called himself the highest-paid child actor “ever since Shirley Temple.”
The money was handled by the people closest to him. His parents were his managers.
In 1989, at 21, Gary took them to court, along with his former business adviser. He said they had misappropriated his trust fund.
In 1993, a court awarded him $1.28 million.
That same year, the host asked him if he still had what he worked for.
He laughed it off. “Let’s just say I don’t think I could buy enough trains to blow the wad that I had.”
How much did he make in total?
“I hate talking about money. But just say that it was many millions.”
Six years later, in 1999, he filed for bankruptcy.
A kid who earned millions had to take his own parents to court to get a fraction of it back.
Should parents ever be allowed to manage their child’s fortune, or should the money be locked away until the kid grows up?
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