Seventies pop legend reveals huge £1.2m bank balance despite slashing UK tour tickets by 50 percent after poor sales
HE was a global sensation in the 70s with number one hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
The likes of the Grammy-winning You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and the ballad When I Need You, both released in 1977, cemented Leo Sayer as pop icon.
So it’s little surprise that the 76-year-old’s finances are in rude health, despite his latest UK tour facing a setback due to poor ticket sales.
We revealed this week how Sayer has slashed prices by up to 50 per cent to ensure bums on seats at his London Palladium show.
Accounts filed to Companies House from Silverbird Ltd earlier this year, show Sayer’s business has £1,190,360 in its coffers, up £170,000 on the previous year.
For all his chart success in his music-making heyday, Sayer’s career was plagued with financial difficulties, primarily due to mismanagement.
Following his divorce from first wife Janice in the mid-80s the extent of the poor money handling was laid bare.
A long drawn out legal battle with his former manager Adam Faith rumbled on for years until it was settled out of court for a reported sum of £650,000.
Later in the decade he splashed out over £90,000 in more legal costs to fight his new management over the alleged mishandling of his pension fund, though he abandoned the case before it ever reached court.
In 2006 he had an unexpected return to the top of the charts after dance act Meck remixed his single Thunder In My Heart.
And an appearance on Celerity Big Brother the following year brought in yet more money, though he called it a “horrible experience” and quit the show because bosses wouldn’t provide him with clean pants.
Regular live performances in his later career have also helped keep him nicely in the black.
However, his upcoming one-night-only performance in London has heavily reduced prices, despite promising a setlist full of toe-tapping crackers.
Tickets are available to purchase for a slice of the original price (£63), with some being sold for just £20 + £4 booking fee.
The half-price tickets were only available in specific seating sections — the Grand and Royal Circle — and fans were limited to a maximum of four tickets each.
Last year, Sayer told The Sun about his hopes for a crowning-glory show at Glastonbury.
In an exclusive chat, he said of finally playing the festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset: “The people who are doing the documentary with me — that’s their dream, to take me there.
“Please, God, they can get through to that.
“Yeah, that’d be great.
“It would be a great denouement of the career to do something like that.”