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How Nicolas Cage Lost His Fortune

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Nicolas Cage once had 15 houses, two European castles, and a pair of albino king cobras — and he still ended up owing the IRS millions.

At his peak, Cage was pulling in roughly $40 million a picture and had amassed an estimated $150 million fortune. By the late 2000s, most of it was gone, swallowed by real estate he couldn’t unload, a menagerie of exotic pets, and a tax bill that kept growing faster than he could pay it down. This is how one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces went from National Treasure to defendant in a $20 million lawsuit over his own finances.

• The IRS placed federal tax liens on Cage’s properties over more than $6 million in unpaid back taxes.
• At one point Cage owned 15 personal properties simultaneously, including two European castles — Midford Castle in Somerset, England, and Schloss Neidstein in Bavaria, Germany.
• In 2007, Cage outbid Leonardo DiCaprio to buy a 67-to-70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus bataar skull for $276,000, only to have federal prosecutors force him to return it in 2015 after determining it had been looted from Mongolia.

Millions in Back Taxes

The clearest sign that Cage’s spending had outpaced his income showed up on his tax bill. The IRS filed federal liens against his real estate holdings over more than $6 million in unpaid taxes, a debt that piled up while he was simultaneously carrying mortgages, upkeep, and insurance on a real estate portfolio that had ballooned far beyond what any working actor could reasonably justify.

Two Castles and a Real Estate Empire

Cage didn’t just own a lot of houses — he owned an entire property class most people never even see listed. At his peak he held 15 personal properties, including Midford Castle in Somerset, England, and Schloss Neidstein in Bavaria, Germany, owned at the same time. He also had a $25 million mansion in Newport Beach, an estate in Rhode Island, and private islands in the Bahamas, a portfolio that generated enormous carrying costs whether or not he was ever actually staying in any of them.

A Personal Menagerie

The properties came with an equally unusual supporting cast. Cage kept a personal collection of exotic animals that included two albino king cobras and an octopus, rare pets that required specialized care, custom enclosures, and insurance premiums that added yet another recurring expense to an already overloaded balance sheet.

The Looted Dinosaur Skull

Nothing captures the excess quite like the dinosaur skull. In 2007, Cage outbid Leonardo DiCaprio at auction for a Tyrannosaurus bataar skull, estimated at 67 to 70 million years old, paying $276,000 for it. In December 2015, federal prosecutors determined the fossil had been illegally looted and smuggled out of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, and Cage agreed to hand it over for repatriation.

More than $6 million in unpaid taxes turned Cage’s real estate empire into a liability the IRS came collecting on.

Action Comics #1 and the Lawsuit Against His Manager

Cage’s comic collection tells its own story of excess and loss. He owned a pristine copy of 1938’s Action Comics #1, the issue that introduced Superman, until it was stolen from his home in 2000. It resurfaced 11 years later in a storage locker and sold at auction in 2011 for a record $2.16 million, the highest price ever paid for a comic book at the time.

The spending itself eventually landed in court. In 2009, Cage filed a $20 million lawsuit against his former business manager, Samuel Levin, accusing him of negligence and financial mismanagement. Levin countersued, arguing he had repeatedly warned Cage to rein in his impulsive purchases and that Cage simply refused to listen — a professional relationship that soured into exactly the kind of courtroom fight chronicled in pieces like celebs who started out friends and ended up enemies. The comic that once sat in his collection ended up outliving the fortune it was supposed to be part of.