99 Percent? Top 25 Occupy Wall Street Backers Worth $4 Billion
Occupy Wall Street attacks income inequality and the richest 1 percent, adopting as its slogan ''we are the 99 percent.'' In October, its protesters staged a ''millionaires march'' in New York City, parading to the homes of wealthy citizens such as Rupert Murdoch and David Koch. But only some riches bother the Occupiers, who have ignored the massive wealth of celebrities in their own ranks.
The top 25 richest celebrities supporting Occupy Wall Street, according to the website Celebrity Net Worth, possess a combined net worth just over $4 billion.
While JP Morgan and Chase banker Jamie Dimon (worth $200 million) was one of the targets of the ''millionaires march,'' he has a net worth less than five of the celebrities supporting OWS.
That's not surprising. Many of the celebrities supporting Occupy Wall Street seem to be oblivious to the amount of wealth they possess.
Comedienne Roseanne Barr, (worth $80 million), was quoted quite literally calling for the heads of wealthy, declaring: ''I do say that I am in favor of the return of the guillotine and that is for the worst of the worst of the guilty. I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the re-education camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded.''
Barr inadvertently called for the heads of 13 celebrities supporting the Occupy Wall Street who make more than $100 million from singer Miley Cyrus to writer Stephen King.
Sometime singer Yoko Ono (#1 on the list, at $500 million) is a descendant of a prominent Japanese banking family. Her late husband John Lennon wrote 'Imagine' in a Park Avenue penthouse. She threw in her support for the movement, saying 'John is sending his smile to Occupy Wall Street.'
Former actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda (worth $120 million), who famously supported communism during the Vietnam War, attacked the wealthy when she threw her support to the Occupiers. ''Any country that has a very, very small narrow layer, of very rich powerful privileged people and no middle class and the rest are just really struggling and some of them not making it, is a country that's not going to be stable.''
Ranked No. 14 was former Vice President Al Gore (worth $100 million), who is better known for his climate change activism and his patronage of private jets. He has also supported Occupy Wall Street, calling it a ''true grassroots movement pointing out the flaws in our system.''
Even those on the list who didn't make the $100 million mark, still have extensive wealth. Liberal actor Alec Baldwin (worth $65 million), a spokesman for Capital One Bank, inveighed against ''the bailouts the US government gives major corporations every day' and 'the excessive fees forced on customers by certain banks'' on the Huffington Post.
Wealthy Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore (worth $50 million) was further down the list but still had enough money when he paid a million dollars for a luxury car and bought a 10,000 square foot vacation home. On Oct. 25, Moore was brazen enough to deny that he was a member of the 1 percent on CNN's ''Piers Morgan Tonight.'' (He was later forced to admit that he was a member of the 1 percent.)
Discredited former CBS anchor Dan Rather (worth $70 million) decried the influence of ''big money'' in American society, even in news reporting, saying: ''we are living in an age when big money owns everything, including the news.''
(He may have been referencing liberal donor George Soros' massive funding of journalism.)
Some celebrities supporting the Occupy movement do not seem to have a firm grasp of what the movement is about. Rapper Jay-Z (worth $450 million) got in trouble for trying to sell T-shirts to Occupiers without ''sharing'' the proceeds. Rapper Kanye West, worth $70 million, showed up to the Occupy Wall Street Movement wearing gold chains.
The attempts of these celebrities to rationalize their own wealth while protesting the wealth of others is astonishing.
Here is a list of the 25 richest (26 thanks to a tie) celebrities supporting the Occupy Movement (Source: Celebrity Net Worth)
1. Yoko Ono - $500 million
2. Jay-Z - $450 million
3. David Letterman - $400 million
(tie) Stephen King - $400 million
5. Russell Simmons - $325 million
6. Sean Lennon - $200 million
7. Mike Myers - $175 million
8. George Clooney - $160 million.
9. Brad Pitt - $150 million
(tie) Don King - $150 million
11. Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) - $145 million
12. Jane Fonda - $120 million
(tie) Miley Cyrus - 120 million
14. Al Gore - $100 million
15. Roseanne Barr - $80 million
(tie) Deepak Chopra - $80 million
17. Kanye West - $70 million
(tie) Dan Rather - $70 million
19. Alec Baldwin - $65 million
(tie) Matt Damon - $65 million
21. Tom Morello - $60 million
(tie) Mia Farrow - $60 million
23. Katy Perry - $55 million
24. Michael Moore - $50 million
(tie) Susan Sarandon - $50 million
(tie) Zack de la Rocha - $50 million
