Awful Celeb Investments And The Money Lost

Celebrities and their money are often parted. Here are a few of the most memorably poor celeb investments, ever.

Information on Mark Twain

One bad investment was made by the first modern celebrity in America, Mark Twain. In the last 19th century, he got a Paige Compositor that was supposed to be a typesetter faster than the standard Linotype. It ended up not working well because it had over 18,000 parts and needed to be cared for too much. Over 11 years, Twain spent $150,000 to $300,000 on the machine, which was a ton of money back in his day.

Hotels by Jay-Z

Another example of a very poor investment was when Jay-Z decided to put up a 15,000-square-foot luxury hotel in the Chelsea neighborhood in 2007. He got a $52 million loan, and ended up not being able to pay it when the economy crashed in 2008. He defaulted on the loan, and the lender got the land back. The construction as never finished. It wasn't until December 2010 that the whole ordeal was over with out-of-court settlements.

Bono not investing wisely

Bono was very profitable in his investments with Facebook, BioWare, Pandemic Studios and Yelp. The only problem was that his confidence grew into investments in Forbes, Inc. ($300 million) and Palm ($460 million). These investments only brought a $25 million return for Bono, and he was called "the worst investor in America" by 24/7 Wall Street. He is the managing director for entertainment equity firm Elevation Partners presently.

Idea Larry King had

A life insurance scam that flipped policies was something King accidently got behind. He made $1.4 million despite the truth that he gave up two policies worth $15 million.

Madoff scammed them all

More than 200 investors, including celebs were taken in by Bernard Madoff's $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Madoff is now in jail serving 150 years for 11 federal felonies, while celebs and lower-profile investors are still looking for ways to make up for their sizable financial loss.

Bad investment from Burt Reynolds

Bert Reynolds really struggled after his film star days. He decided to put $15 million to the restaurant chain PoFolks. He started this restaurant in Texas, Florida and California. It passed away off, as would be expected, and he lost everything in the divorce with Loni Anderson. He ended up going bankrupt in 1996, which did not hurt too badly considering he was able to keep all property he owned that was not already claimed by Anderson such as a $2.5 million mansion. This was despite the truth that he actually owed $10 million at the time.

Poor investment decision form Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds decided she wanted to open a Las Vegas casino and hotel in 1991, although she did not realize that being off the strip would make it impossible to stay in business. It was known as the Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino, but she wound up selling it for $10 million to the World Wrestling Federation in 1998 after a 1997 bankruptcy. She ended up broke, and was even worse off when having to sell all her movie career memorabilia last year when her museum went bankrupt.