John Mayer has been around the music business ever since the early aughts, and his musical talent and songwriting prowess have made him a very rich man. He’s worth a very comfortable $70 million as of 2021, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
He grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut, where by John’s teenage years, he became obsessed with mastering the electric guitar. That led him to attend the prestigious Berklee School of Music in 1997 after graduating from high school. He eventually dropped out after two semesters to pursue a career as part of the short-lived duo LoFi Masters with then-pal Clay Cook.
John made a big impression with his appearance at 2001’s South by Southwest Music Festival, which earned him a contract with Columbia Records. His first two full studio albums, 2001’s Room for Squares and 2003’s Heavier Things, both went multiplatinum and spawned such massive hits as “Daughters,” Bigger Than My Body” and “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” which in 2003 earned John a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
He continued to cement is reputation as one of the brightest young singer-songwriter-guitarists when John released his 2006 album, Continuum, a more blues-infused output that included his now-classics “Gravity” and “Waiting on the World to Change.” John added another Grammy to his collection for Best Pop Vocal Album.
The next decade wouldn’t be as kind to John, as he suffered several personal and professional setbacks. He was widely criticized for a now-infamous February 2010 Playboy interview where he used the “N” word and referred to former girlfriend Jessica Simpson as “sexual napalm” while getting crudely descriptive about his physical attraction to her. John also provided TMI about online pornography binges.
While needing to step away from the limelight to let the dust settle from his Playboy controversy, John took two years off from performing due to issues with his vocal cords. He required two surgeries in 2011 and 2012, amid concerns that he might not get his famous voice back to where it once was.
“Everything changed about my voice,” John told Rolling Stone in a 2013 interview. He continued, “I don’t have the projection. My laugh changed. The way I used to laugh is kind of like that ‘I’m embarrassed,’ high-pitched laugh. I don’t really laugh that way anymore. I’ve found new ways around everything – new ways to talk, new ways to laugh. Now, I wonder if I can go right back to the shape of my voice that I had when I was singing once I can do what I want to do with it.”
John resumed his singing career and eventually joined several former Grateful Dead members to form Dead and Company, with John taking on many of the late Jerry Garcia’s vocals and iconic lengthy guitar solos. He’s successfully toured with the band since 2015, while maintaining his solo music career.
The singer has one very expensive passion, and that is high-end timepieces. He told The New York Times in 2015 that his watch collection is worth “in the tens of millions.” John explained, “I spend probably as much time thinking about or diving into watches as I do anything else.” CNBC’s The Filthy Rich Guide in 2017 estimated that 25 percent of John’s wealth was tied up in his watch collection.
John also has money invested in real estate. In 2018, he paid $13.4 million for Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine‘s modern 7,100 square-foot Beverly Hills home.