Why Bruno Mars And Other Stars Are Ditching Their Managers

When Bruno Mars stopped at Madison Square Garden last year during his 24K Magic Tour, he didn’t feel the need to dress up—hitting the stage in sneakers, shorts and a pastel baseball jersey with the word “HOOLIGANS” displayed backwards on the front. Periodically, artillery-grade pyrotechnics pummeled the eardrums of the sellout crowd, while those within 200 feet felt flames nearly close enough to singe an eyebrow. As Mars told me the last time I interviewed him: “You gotta be fearless, man.”
The “Uptown Funk” singer—who closed his set in New York with the song whose 3 billion-plus YouTube views place it in the all-time top ten—can do whatever he wants these days. In addition to being one of the biggest stars in the music firmament, Mars is among a handful of high-profile acts who no longer answer to a traditional artist manager, choosing instead to take control of his own career starting two years ago.

For the 32-year-old Mars, the move has paid off. He’s garnered more than 1 billion streaming spins over the past year, grabbed six Grammys and raked in a career-best $100 million pretax—his tour has grossed upwards of $300 million since its 2017 launch—placing him at No. 11 on Forbes' Celebrity 100 list and securing his place as America’s highest-paid musician. Best of all, Mars doesn’t have to hand over as much as 20% to a manager. Instead, he relies on salaried staff, with an estimated cost in the low six figures—a setup that should save him at least $10 million this year alone.

Of course, handing over a cut of income isn’t anathema to all musicians. Many of the industry’s top-paid acts still rely on high-powered managers, from U2 (who are managed by Guy Oseary and earned $118 million last year) to Katy Perry (Martin Kirkup, Bradford Cobb and Steve Jensen, $83 million) to Calvin Harris (Mark Gillespie, $48 million). Given those numbers, some argue that a well-connected guide can prove to be a bargain.

“It depends on whether you see it as giving up 10-20% or whether you see it as somebody that you’re going to bring into your organization that’ll add more than 20% worth of value to your business,” says Gillespie. “If you’re running a large business, you want people to be motivated to grow and build that business, and to be aligned with you. I think the reason why it has worked for us for a long time historically is because it brings that alignment.”

Yet other musicians on the Celebrity 100 have eschewed managers, for various reasons. For Beyoncé, it was partly a way to break free from a controlling father; for Taylor Swift, the reasoning may have had to do with a preference for her existing support network; for Jay-Z, Diddy and Dr. Dre—the top three musicians in America in terms of net worth—helming their own careers appears to be part of their identities as self-made moguls.

“Managers have existed, but really only for Puff Daddy the artist and really not in the traditional sense of … a manager being somebody who kind of tells an artist what to do,” said Diddy’s lawyer Kenny Meiselas in an interview for my book, 3 Kings. “More of kind of like a right-hand man, who would help him execute on the artist side.”

For Bruno Mars, who has never tried to present himself as a businessman, it was something quite different, all part of a fascinating tale that’s a bit of an open secret in Hollywood circles—indeed, many of the people I interviewed for this story asked not to be mentioned by name—but fully reported for the first time here.

To read more go on https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/16/100m-magic-why-bruno-mars-and-other-stars-are-ditching-their-managers/