25 Celebrities Who Walked Away From Huge Amounts Of Money

Lady Gaga is an American pop singer known for her ever-changing image and musical versatility. She is one of the world's best-selling music artists.

So no wonder that in 2012, she was invited to perform at the Republican Party Convention and offered $1 million in return. As it is known that the singer contributes greatly to charity, besides the million dollars, it was promised that $150,000 would go toward a domestic violence shelter if she played. Lady Gaga is public about her liberal views, so it is not surprising that she didn't take the job.

The song "Somebody That I Used to Know" was released in 2011 and is the most successful piece written by the creator Gotye, whose real name is Wouter De Backer. It has topped international charts and as of February 2021, the song's music video was viewed over 1.6 billion times. You would think that a person with so many views on YouTube would have earned enough money from the ads on the site to last for a lifetime. That is not the case with Gotye: he actually didn't monetize his most successful video or any other video on his YouTube channel. You can only guess what kind of money the music video would have made, but in comparison, the Korean artist Psy earned about $2 million only from ad revenue when the music video for "Gangnam Style" reached 2 billion views. Gotye doesn't want his music to be associated with products on ads and he's not interested in selling his music. That is the simple reason why Gotye potentially didn't earn millions from YouTube ads.

The Swedish pop group ABBA formed in 1972 and ended their career in 1982. They became an international hit after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song "Waterloo." It is estimated that they sold from 150 million to 380 million records worldwide and that makes them one of the best-selling musicians of all time.

And though they aren't actively performing, their popularity didn't die out. Nearly 30 years after their disbandment, in 2000, the group was offered $1 billion for a reunion tour. Sadly for the fans, the members of the group turned down the offer. ABBA believed that not reuniting helped them to stay popular. Also, they knew that touring would cause unwanted stress and require a lot of time.

ZZ Top is an internationally known American rock band formed in 1969 and still active today. In total they sold 25 million records and they are in the list of the top-100-selling artists in the United States.

Two members of the group, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill, decided to change their image in the 1970s and started to sport really long beards and their beards became iconic. So much so that the razor company Gillette offered the two of them $1 million to shave it off in a commercial. But the rockers couldn't even think about the idea of shaving their precious facial hair. Gibbons compared seeing himself in the mirror clean-shaven with a Vincent Price film (this actor is most famous for acting in horror movies), so they declined the offer. What do you think about their decision?

Jerry Seinfeld is best known for playing a character based on himself in the sitcom Seinfeld. The show aired from 1989 until 1998 and it became very popular. It was so successful that NBC wanted to keep it going as it was the biggest show on TV.

They had to convince Seinfeld do another season and came to him with a sum that nobody could resist: $110 million for a season of 22 episodes. But Seinfeld thought that he had given everything to this show and it came time to care for himself, so he didn't agree to continue. When asked if he regretted his decision, he explained that it was the perfect moment to end everything.

Will Ferrell is an actor well-known for his roles in comedy films. In fact, he is considered to be a member of "The Frat Pack." It is a nickname given to a group of actors who starred in many of the highest-grossing comedy movies since the mid-1990s. But Will Ferrell continued his success into the 2000s: the movie Elf (2003) is one the best Christmas movies to a lot of people and it received great reviews. The movie grossed $220 million worldwide and the creators were eager to make a second part.

However, there was no follow-up because Will Ferrell didn't agree to continue portraying Buddy. That means he walked away from $29 million. What's more, he doesn't regret it at all. The actor didn't want to taint the first movie in case the second one wouldn't be as great. Also, he couldn't bear the idea of people thinking he did it just for money.

The Dark Knight trilogy was a very successful series of movies about Batman. Warner Bros. earned $2.4 billion at the worldwide box office from the three films. The actor who played Batman was Christian Bale and he earned about $54 million from the three movies. At the end of the third movie, he was offered the role again to continue with the fourth installment, but he declined. Even though he was offered $50 million—almost the same amount as he earned from the three movies put together.

The actor explained that from the beginning, the director Christopher Nolan envisioned a trilogy and thought that he should stop after the third movie. Christian Bale respected the director's wish and that's why the trilogy didn't become a quadrilogy.

Michael Keaton is an American actor that started his career with roles in sitcoms and comedic films. He was just rising to fame when he gained more recognition after playing Batman in Tim Burton's movies. The actor was paid $5 million for the first Batman movie and $10 million for the second. A third movie should have been filmed, and this time, Michael Keaton would have been paid $15 million.

But he turned down the money and the reason is very simple: he didn't like what he had read in the script. Michael Keaton liked the previous movies, which had a darker tone, but Warner Bros. weren't satisfied with the second movie's earnings, so they thought the film should be more light-hearted. So, money couldn't have fixed the problem for Michael Keaton here.

Keanu Reeves is a breathtaking Canadian actor who is known for the acting in the legendary Matrix movies, among others. The movie that really helped skyrocket the actor's fame was Speed. The film was a huge success, grossing $350 million worldwide and it won Oscars for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. It was very quickly decided to make a sequel.

He was offered the role and a $12 million salary. But very similarly to Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves read the script and wasn't fascinated with it. The second movie received a lot of negative reviews, so that just proved that the actor made the right decision.