Right, here’s how popstar priest Reverend Richard Coles made his secretly whopping fortune

Reverend Richard Coles has been one of the most surprising additions to the I’m A Celeb jungle this year, and his fortune might wow you even further. He pleasantly surprised us all as a funny and wholesome campmate who quickly became popular with a lot of young people. What you didn’t know is that his net worth is actually HUGE. He’s had a whole lot of career changes, so what was it that actually made him a massive fortune?

Reverend Richard Coles has a net worth of £3.9 million, and he’s had a variety of ways of making that money. Here’s what got him his millions!

His time in two major 80s bands

Richard Coles was in two major bands in the 1980s called Bronski Beat and The Communards. In Bronski Beat, Richard played clarinet and saxophone before he and Jimmy Somerville left the band to form the Communards. Bronski Beat are best known for Smalltown Boy – and Reverend Richard Coles was good pals with Jimmy Somerville who invited him on tour with them as the saxophonist. The two then broke off and started The Communards, who went on tour many times and made a lot of money from royalties. His first paycheck from The Communards was £60,000 in 1985 saved him from being absolutely broke.

Richard recalled in an interview with I magazine that he once “banked a cheque for £400,000 of royalties.” That is another level of WILD.

His book deals

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The reverend made a lot of money from his book publishing deals too. He has currently written nine books to date, including a memoir about his life as a priest. The rest are fiction books, and one of them titled Murder in the Monastery is even set to be a Channel 5 series. That will surely up his net worth by a whole lot more.

His company, Mistramark Ltd

Richard also owns a company called Mistramark Ltd, with The Sun reporting that the company made around £940,000 in profit from 2022 to 2023. He’s clearly doing well for himself!

Investments

via ITV

Reverend Coles has been very transparent with the way he manages his money and investments, and he told I magazine that he once “sold a painting for 15 times the amount” he bought it for. While he wouldn’t reveal how much that single transaction made him, it’s clear he’s got his head screwed on when it comes to finances.

Before his fame, he struggled

Richard revealed he struggled a lot before his fame and was “on the dole” and living in “squalid accommodation” in North London for a while.

“I was absolutely broke. Although it was slightly different for me because I was only a journey away from my parents who would feed me, and I had friends who would help out. It felt a bit like a sort of Bohemian interlude really. The lowest point was being in this unheated rent flat in north London in mid-winter and the damp bathroom ceiling fell in and the builders came round, chipped away for a bit and then left with us being unable to close any of the windows and I had glandular fever. At that point I realised that if I didn’t get my act together I might be living like that forever. Fortunately Bronski Beat happened quite soon afterwards,” he recounted.