This Was The Net Worth Of Karen Carpenter When She Died

Karen Carpenter was born on March 2, 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut, per Biography. Her family moved to Downey, California when she was 13. As a teenager, Carpenter developed an interest in music and started playing glockenspiel and drums. She formed a band with her brother, Richard, and they won a battle of the bands at the Hollywood Bowl in 1966.

Karen and Richard Carpenter eventually became a duo, the Carpenters, and signed a record deal with A&M. Their first album, 1969's "Offering," was a bit of a dud, but their follow up, 1970's "Close To You," was a hit. The title track, "(They Long to Be) Close to You," topped the Billboard Top 100 in July of 1970, and won a Grammy. The Carpenters also won a Grammy for Best New Artist and became soft rock icons, with a string of hits including "We've Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days and Mondays," "Superstar," and "Hurting Each Other."

Karen Carpenter was particularly lauded for her beautiful alto singing voice. The Chicago Tribune once claimed her "evocative lower register had a richness that no female pop singer ever has matched" and called her voice "at once incredibly beautiful and strikingly neutral."

Karen Carpenter began struggling with eating disorders in the mid-1970s, losing a significant amount of weight and canceling a European tour to spend time recovering in the hospital and at her parents' home. She eventually moved to New York to get treatment for anorexia nervosa and, seeemingly on the mend, returned to California. She collapsed at her parent's home the morning of February 4, 1983 and was taken to the hospital. She couldn't be revived, and Karen Carpenter died of heart failure at just 32 years old, as reported by Biography.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, she had just $2,000 in her bank account at the time of her death, but her total net worth was $6 million — about $14 million today, after adjusting for inflation. Her wealth was tied up in non-liquid assets, which led to a huge amount of taxes incurred by her estate; in the end, over 60 percent of her fortune went to "final expenses and taxes." According to 2010's Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter by Randy L. Schmidt, she had willed her money to her parents and her brother, Richard.