What is Jay Kay’s Net Worth?
Jay Kay, the lead vocalist of Jamiroquai, is an English musician with a net worth of $70 million. The band has sold over 26 million albums worldwide. Despite being a founding member of the band, Jay Kay is occasionally referred to as just Jamiroquai due to a common misconception.
Jay Kay’s Background
Jay Kay, born Jason Luis Cheetham on December 30, 1969 in Stretford, Lancashire, England, is the son of Karen Kay, a former cabaret singer and TV personality, and Luis Saraiva, a former guitarist. He had an identical twin who died shortly after birth, and was mostly raised by his mother in rural Devon and Suffolk. Kay attended Oakham School in Rutland before leaving home at 15 and turning to a life of petty crime. He later returned home and pursued a career in music, working as a breakdancer before forming his own band. He failed an audition to become a singer for The Brand New Heavies before finding success with his own music.
Jamiroquai’s Success and Record Sales
Jay Kay formed Jamiroquai with core members Toby Smith, Stuart Zender, Nick Van Gelder, and Wallis Buchanan in 1992. After the success of their first single, When You Gonna Learn, Jamiroquai signed a one million USD record deal with Sony Music Entertainment and recorded their first album, Emergency on Planet Earth. The band’s third album, Travelling Without Moving, gained international attention with the groundbreaking video of Virtual Insanity, which earned Jamiroquai four MTV Video Music Awards and a Guinness World Record for the best-selling funk album in history. The single Virtual Insanity also earned the group a Grammy Award in 1998.
The band went on to record several successful albums, including Synkronized, A Funk Odyssey, Dynamite, Rock Dust Light Star, and Automaton. As of April 2017, the band had sold more than 26 million albums worldwide, making them the third best-selling UK act in the ’90s, after the Spice Girls and Oasis. However, despite their popularity in the UK, the band struggled to find relevance and a devoted audience in the US, with only 2.5 million copies sold compared to 4.4 million in the UK.
Jay Kay’s Impressive Car Collection
Besides music, Jay Kay is known for his valuable car collection, which at its peak included 100 cars and is likely worth at least $30 million today. His favorite brand is Ferrari, and he even wrote a song about his black Enzo called “Black Devil Car”. Unfortunately, in March 2009, a drunk chef vandalized the Enzo, causing over $40,000 worth of damage, because he thought Jay Kay was arrogant. The chef was sentenced to 20 months in jail.
Some of Jay Kay’s other notable cars include:
- A green Lamborghini Miura SV
- A blue Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona
- A red Ferrari F40
- A yellow Porsche 911 Turbo
- A silver Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman
Jay Kay’s Television Appearances
Kay has made several television appearances throughout his career. He appeared in an episode of the BBC series The Naked Chef and performed on the series Strictly Come Dancing, singing Canned Heat. He also appeared four times in the BBC car show Top Gear. During his first appearance, he set a lap time of 1:48.1 for the show’s “Star in a reasonably priced car” and became the leading high-scorer for the rest of the current and most of the next series. In his second appearance, he drove his Lamborghini Miura with Richard Hammond as a passenger. In his third appearance, he beat the top time held by Simon Cowell with a lap time of 1:45.8. Jay Kay won Top Gear’s “John Sergeant Award” for the best dance, and his time on the Top Gear test track was the fastest lap in 2008.
Jay Kay’s Personal Life and Legal Issues
Jay Kay dated Denise van Outen from 1998-2001. They were engaged but split up before getting married. He has been in a relationship with a woman named Maria, whom he later confirmed that he married in 2017. The couple has two daughters.
In 2001, Kay was charged with assaulting a paparazzi photographer and damaging his camera outside a nightclub, but the charges were later dropped. He was also questioned by the police in 2002 after allegedly being headbutted by a member of the paparazzi, but no charges were brought up.
Kay has admitted to having a substantial cocaine habit in the past but has been drug-free since 2003.
In 2017, Kay suffered a severe spinal injury that required surgery and caused Jamiroquai to cancel two shows in Tokyo for their Automaton tour.
Kay used to live in Ealing, West London, where he played some of his first gigs at The Haven pub on Spring Bridge Road. He now resides in Horsenden, a small village in Buckinghamshire, where he has his own private recording studio.
