What would you do if you were rich and famous?
Many of us have fantasies about how we’d spend money left and right if we were celebrities. However, it takes years of practice to spend money the way a celebrity does. And that is because veteran celebs aren’t afraid to spend a small fortune on some of the most ridiculous things.
Don’t believe it? Here is our comprehensive list of the most expensive ridiculous purchases celebrities ever made, in order from least to most expensive!
Bono: $1,500 for a plane ticket… for his hat
U2 singer Bono has some eccentricities, including a profound love of hats. In 2003, when Bono arrived in Modena, Italy for a charity concert, he realized he forgot had forgotten his hat in London and decided he could not perform without it. To bring his hat to him in Italy, Bono paid $1,500. This price included a plane ticket (first class, of course), insurance, cab fare, and even tips.
It’s a cute story until you realize that Bono gave that hat the trip to Italy you’ve always been dreaming of!
Miley Cyrus: $24,000 for hair extensions
If you’ve ever seen Miley Cyrus perform, then you know that her hair is a major part of her look. Perhaps this is why she spent $24,000 on hair extensions when she was 17. But not just any extensions: these were flown in from Italy, and then experts dyed the extensions to match Miley’s hair!
Johnny Depp: $30,000 on wine… per month
Troubled star Johnny Depp has made many extravagant purchases in his lifetime, including buying his own island. But the wildest tale of Depp’s purchases is that he spends $30,000 on fancy wine per month. Granted, this is premium wine flown in from all over the world, but this still amounts to one of the world’s most expensive drinking habits.
Lady Gaga: $50,000 for a ghost detector
Everyone has at least one friend who believes in ghosts. But Lady Gaga took things to the next level by buying an Electro-Magnetic Field Reader for a cool $50,000. This specialized equipment is supposed to detect ghosts. But if that thing ever goes off, how much would Gaga spend to build a real Proton Pack?
Beyoncé: $100,000 for gold leggings
For just about anyone else, we’d have to shake our heads at the idea of spending $100,000 on some gold leggings. But that’s exactly what Beyoncé did when she bought Balenciaga leggings for her 2007 BET Awards performance. It ended up being a killer performance, and Bey created another iconic look for herself.
Mike Tyson: $140,000 for Bengal tigers
Mike Tyson has also bought many strange items, including that time he bought a golden bathtub. But our favorite strange purchase he made was buying a couple of Bengal tigers. Tyson allegedly paid $140,000. He eventually had to give up raising these big cats, but he made sure to give them a fun cameo in The Hangover first.
Nicolas Cage: $276,000 for a T-rex skull
Nicolas Cage has a profound love of buying weird stuff, and that has sometimes put him in financial hot water. But one of his strangest purchases was a T-Rex skull that he bought for $276,000. Cage bought it in 2007 but then had to return it in 2015 when authorities discovered it was stolen and never meant to be sold.
Paris Hilton: $325,000 for a dog villa
Paris Hilton is the poster child for dubious fame, riding a famous name and an infamous video into superstardom. But we can’t fault her for some of her more adorable purchases. For example, she once spent $325,000 on a special villa for her dogs. The villa in question is a tiny replica of Hilton’s home, and any dog owner that tells you they wouldn’t do the same if they could is lying to you!
Celine Dion: $2 million for a humidifier
“Celine Dion bought a humidifier for $2 million” sounds pretty absurd on the face of it. But Dion actually bought the fancy equipment in 2002 when she first began living in Las Vegas and making regular performances. She reasoned that the desert air might damage her throat, and she decided that an expensive humidifier was a small price to pay to protect her voice! And when you amortize the cost of the humidifier over her historic 16-year run in Vegas, it surely paid off in the long run!
Kim Basinger: $20 million for a town in Georgia
They say “you can’t go home again,” but Kim Basinger never got that memo. In 1989, after she got sufficiently wealthy, this Georgia native bought a bit of her home state by buying an entire Georgia town for $20 million! She owned 1,751 acres of Braselton, Georgia and had dreams of turning it into a tourist destination. But that never happened, and she ended up selling the town five years later at a loss.