Seven years after his death, Michael Jackson out-earns everyone else

His death – in June 2009 – shocked the world. And now, seven years on, Michael Jackson is still raking in the mega-bucks.

In fact, the iconic pop superstar is this year's biggest earning celebrity – dead or alive. 

According to Forbes, the King Of Pop topped raked in $825m (€752m) in pretax earnings.

Boosting Jackson’s estate for 2016  was the sale of his half of the Sony/ATV music-publishing catalogue, which included a library of Beatles songs; that alone fetched $750m (€684m) in March.

He originally purchased the catalogue in 1985 for $47.5m (€43.3m) and sold a 50 percent stake to Sony for $115m (€105m) in 1995, according to Forbes.

Living celebrities such as Dr Phil ($88m), Diddy ($62m) and Sofía Vegara ($43m) all pale in comparison.

Also joining Jackson on the Forbes list of richest dead celebrities were Peanuts creator Charles Schultz at No. 2 ($48m/€43.75m), golf legend Arnold Palmer ($40m/€36.5m) and Elvis Presley ($27m/€24.5m).