Miley Cyrus has revealed that she didn't make any money at all from her 2014 Bangerz Tour because of the high production costs.
Although making money from live shows is challenging when artists are playing smaller venues, it's generally thought that once you are at arena and stadium level concerts are a cash cow. However, even when you are selling out major venues, the profitably of the show does depend on how much you spend on production.
And in 2014, Cyrus - in the middle of reinventing herself, from child star to provocative pop star - spent big on props and staging.
The Sun quotes Cyrus reminiscing about the tour that followed the release of her 2013 album 'Bangerz', noting "I didn’t make a dime".
“It was an investment in myself", she says. “A lot of these ideas were so outlandish that no one wanted to support me in making these items. I had big puppets, oversized beds, I arrived on stage by sliding down [a giant model of] my own tongue".
“I didn’t make a dime on this tour because I wanted it to be excellent", she goes on, "and when everyone kept saying ‘why are you doing this - you are going to do, like, a hundred shows and you are not going to make any money?’, I said there is no one I would rather invest in than myself”.
“I paid for it all to make it exactly what I and the fans deserved", she concludes.
Which is nice. I just hope the fans appreciated it, giant tongue and all.