Peter Maffay: The fortune of the German singer

How rich is Peter Maffay?

From the Bavarian Order of Merit to the Federal Cross of Merit, Peter Maffay has not only been able to take home many prestigious awards from the music scene. Rather, the German-Romanian artist is particularly known for his social commitment. As a multimillionaire, Peter finds it easy to do something for others. From the Bravo Otto to the German Record Prize to the German Music Prize and the ECHO, the artist has already won pretty much all awards that are well-known in Germany. He has also already secured the National Order of Merit of Romania. It was a total of 18 number one albums that made the Tabaluga singer one of the most successful performers in the German charts. So it is not surprising that the singer is a millionaire. The cherished Peter Maffay’s net worth is 25 million euros.

A steep career

Peter Maffay laid the foundation for his career when he met Michael Kunze in 1969. His first single, “You,” appeared in January of the following year. As early as March 1970, the singer was allowed to appear on the ZDF hit parade for the first time and was thus able to achieve a truly impressive level of awareness in Germany in one fell swoop. At the same time it made it into the charts of the following countries: Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Norway and the hit parade of the Netherlands. The fact that an artist who was just at the beginning of his career was able to sell a million singles already indicated how successful the future multimillionaire would become.

While Peter Maffay was initially on the road as a pop singer, he increasingly became a German rocker in the course of the 1980s. His album “Steppenwolf” sold 1.6 million times, so that the artist was able to set another sales record. But times were not all rosy for Peter during his career. 1982 marked a low point. Though Peter Maffay at this point was very lucky to be able to go on tour with the Rolling Stones. His preliminary program was so badly received by the German fans of the Stones that the audience even threw eggs and tomatoes at the musician. But this was followed by many heights for the musician. In 2011, for example, he recorded a new edition of his earlier hit Nessaja with Bushido and Sido for their album 23 with the song Adult His. Peter Maffay sold a total of 50 million records. Some of his tours had more than 700,000 visitors per tour.

Peter Maffay far from rock music

In addition to music, Peter Maffay is especially for that these days Tabaluga fairy tale known. 78 cartoons, a musical and six albums as well as our own children’s foundation have emerged from this project. In addition, Maffay has appeared several times as a film actor in the past. He was with the following productions: “The Joker,” “Caught in Yemen” and “The Polar Bear”. In the first two films Maffay was even able to secure the leading roles.

Peter Maffay not only expressed his social commitment with his songs, but also followed his words with deeds. Together with Nena and Rolf Zuckowski, for example, he recorded a theme song for the “Ein Herz für Kinder” campaign in 2008. The artist also runs his own foundation, which makes funds available for a number of social projects. In some cases, Maffay shines personally with his commitment in the context of these projects. Peter Maffay also advocates more tolerance in the fight against racism. In 2015, this even led to Peter Maffay being appointed ambassador for the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance.

Expensive divorces

In the course of his life, four wives were allowed to accompany Peter Maffay on his way. However, all of these marriages fell apart. Peter Maffay is now in a relationship with the teacher Hendrikje Balsmeyer, who is decades younger than the artist. Despite the many marriages, the rock musician has only one birth son. However, he adopted his first daughter together with his second wife, who was a student teacher at the time. In November 2018 his girlfriend Hendrikje gave birth to a daughter and Peter Maffay became a father again at the proud age of 69.

The current marriage “number 4” with Mrs. Tanja is not yet legally divorced and so she is suing the singer for maintenance of 56,000 euros per month. Since there is no marriage contract, a regulation has to be found, because the assets that were built up (together) during the marriage are usually shared. In over 16 years of marriage, there are probably many millions at stake here. At that time he paid his first wife Petra (1975-1979) 500,000 euros and his second wife Chris (1981-1986) 2 million euros in severance payments. The third woman Michaela (1990-2000) already collected a two-digit million amount.

Image sources:
Cover picture: www.sommer-in-hamburg.de / Flickr [CC-BY 2.0]
Dirk Vorderstrasse [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons