Of all the wild women of rock and roll, Courtney Love has to be seen as the matriarch. Nobody has ever been as wild or notorious as Love. With her band Hole, she was part of the grunge scene of the mid-1990s, with her marriage to Nirvana star Kurt Cobain making them the power couple of the alternative music scene. Their marriage was messy, and fraught with drug addiction and disagreement. Cobain took his own life in 1994, and some of his die-hard fans accused Love of murdering him. That just seemed to drive her further off the rails.
Her own music career was mostly dried up by the early 2000s, and by 2012 things had deteriorated financially for her to the point where she owed big money to the IRS, as well as nearly $30m in legal fees for various issues. She's paying it all off in installments, which mostly come from the money that her ex-husband's estate pays to her.
To insure one’s house, one’s car or to underwrite a life insurance policy, that is common practice. But who would pay an insurance premium for his/her thumb, legs or smile? Stars, of course.
At the top of the ranking are the legs of Mariah Carey, worth 810 million USD: The diva became, in 2006, the Gillette brand muse for the advertising campaign «Legs of a Goddess». She then took out an insurance policy with London Lloyds to protect her legs, a decision that is far from being insignificant. Among its customers, the London insurer then included several icons of music, such as Bob Dylan or Rod Stewart.
David Beckham’s body insured for 195 million USD: European champion with Manchester United in 1999, David Beckham was in 2006 the most renowned footballer of the planet. In relation to his sporting activities, he took out an insurance cover for his legs. The huge amount paid for his insurance would reportedly exceed the 103 million USD disbursed by Real Madrid for the cover of Christiano Ronaldo in 2009. The fashion model would later extend his insurance cover to his entire body.
15 million USD in insurance for Kim Kardashian’s curves: The curves of Kim Kardashian are her number one beauty asset. The reality TV star, who is crazy about plastic surgery, has underwritten an insurance policy worth 15 million USD to protect her famous butt.
The culinary critic Egon Ronay assured his taste buds: The famous Hungarian culinary critic has insured his taste buds since 1957, for the amount of 400 000 USD. An original insurance policy which allows him to cover his sense of taste without which he will no longer be able to practice his job.