Joss Stone pays herself £2.2 million

But she leaves her companies broke

The MusicRadar Team, Wed 25 Jun 2008, 2:41 pm UTC

Not a poor girl

Now, we all know the job of the self-employed musician can require some 'inventive' accounting – those parking fares for the van and bills for strings can be claimed as 'expenses'. And rightly so.

But get this. According to UK newspaper The Mirror, Joss Stone paid herself £2.2 million last year. Which would be fine. Except her Joss Ltd company was in the red by £412,295. Another company, Joss ROW Touring, ended the year £210,050 in the red and Joss Publishing Ltd lost £62,588.

We're no accountants, but if she'd only paid herself a salary of £1.5 million, those books might balance. Oh, but then she'd have to pay more tax, maybe?

The 'Devon diva' hasn't had a Top 10 hit since 2004, though she will have earned some income recently for advertising Cadbury Flakes.

MusicRadar wishes her troubled companies the best in these hard times, obviously. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Stone is only worth £12m.

(We're not complaining. Stone once bought one of MusicRadar a Pot Noodle.)