Sir Paul McCartney achieves billionaire status plus another huge financial milestone

Beatles icon Sir Paul McCartney has reportedly become a billionaire, according to new estimates.

The 84-year-old musician now occupies third place on the list of the world's wealthiest musical artists, trailing behind only Taylor Swift and Jay-Z.

Data published by Forbes places McCartney’s net worth at a minimum of $1.4bn, with Swift standing at $2bn and Jay-Z leading the standings at $2.8bn.

A significant portion of the Hey Jude songwriter’s expanding fortune is attributed to MPL Communications, the publishing venture he launched in 1969 before the Beatles broke up.

The business is currently estimated to be worth at least a quarter of a billion dollars.

Although McCartney has refrained from commenting on the publication's assessment, he is understood to generate tens of millions of dollars annually.

His revenue is driven by royalty rights for songs such as Blue Suede Shoes and It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, alongside theatrical scores that yield payments from amateur stagings of shows including Grease.

His overall wealth is further supported by lucrative music catalogues, massive global tour receipts, extensive UK real estate holdings, and a private art collection featuring pieces by Pablo Picasso.

The musician has previously described himself as a "playaholic", explaining that he has never regarded his career as actual work.

He told Zane Lowe in an interview for Apple Music: "People say, ‘Oh you’re a workaholic’ and I say, ‘We don’t work music, we play it, so I’m a playaholic!

“I hate it when making music starts to feel like work.”

The music icon has given his thoughts on the kind of music that’s being released these days.

He told Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast: “Billie Eilish is cool, but I don’t think I’d want to have written her songs. A lot of songs these days are breakup songs, and I’m married!

“Back in the day, I used to wish I’d written Billy Joel’s Just the Way You Are. I always thought that was the kind of song I felt I could have written.

“Nowadays, some of [the popular songs] are very banal…”

As for what he likes to listen to these days, Sir Paul has become more of a fan of The Beatles as time has gone on.

He laughed: “I’m a fan. The more we go on, I’m a bigger fan. I’m a Beatles fan. I’ll hear something we did and I’ll remember writing it with John, and think, ‘Wow, I was really lucky to sit down and write with someone and he happens to be John Lennon.’ And I think the same for him with me.

“I’ve become more a fan the more I think about them.”