Christ Stein was born on 5 January 1950, in Brooklyn, New York City USA, the only child of Ben and Estelle and of Jewish ancestry. He is best known as a co-founder and guitarist of the American band Blondie.
So just how rich is Christ Stein, as of mid-2017? Authoritative sources estimate that Stein’s net worth is as high as $10 million, accumulated from his careers in several fields of the music industry which began in the ‘70s.
Chris Stein Net Worth $10 million
Prior to his big breakthrough in the music industry, Stein wanted to be an Egyptologist, however, he changed his mind when his parents bought him his first guitar at the age of 11. Stein attended junior high school at Andres Hudde, and went on to attend Midwood High School, but was eventually kicked out for having long hair, and finished his high school education at Quintanos School for Young Professionals. He joined the Stilettos, a glam-rock group and met Debbie Harry there; they remained very good friends and established a professional partnership as well, and Chris went on to establish the new weave, punk rock band Blondie in 1974 with her.
Besides being active in the music industry, Stein is also an acclaimed photographer who has taken thousand of images, largely focusing on his band, the singer Debbie Harry and the early New York City punk music scene. His talent for photography was recognized and he has collaborated with artists such as Andy Warhol and H.R Giger. Stein wrote the hit song ‘’Sunday Girl’’ for Blondie all on his own, and in addition has co-written numerous songs with Debbie Harry, the band’s lead vocalist. Their songs ‘’Heart of Glass’’, ‘’Picture This’’ and ‘’Dreaming’’, alongside others were widely recognized, and so Blondie’s members earned considerable acclaim in the music industry, considerably boosting their net worth.
Chris had a lot on his plate during the early ‘80s, when he produced the soundtracks for ‘’Wild Style’’ and ‘’Union City’’. The members of Blondie remained active throughout ‘70s and ‘80s with their career in progress, but eventually fell apart when Chris was diagnosed with pemphigus; however, they reunited in 1997.
Stein’s photography career was still praised in the more recent past, and he had an exhibition at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in 2013, and his work was published in 2014 by the Rizzoli International and entitled “Chris Stein / Negative: Me, Blondie, and the Advent of Punk”. It was launched as an exhibition at Somerset House, on the 40th anniversary of Blondie’s establishment. Some of the photographs have already been published in “Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie” by Chris himself, Debbie Harry and Victor Bokris. The book was published in two volumes.
In the following year, Stein made an appearance alongside Debbie Harry in an episode of “Songify the News”, an American entertainment web series, and they reunited to make a parody of the 2016 presidential election debates. The year of 2016 also brought a Blondie tour for Stein, and the band is still touring as of 2017, and has released an album called ‘’Pollinator’’ in May of the same year.
Also in 2017, Stein had another exhibition of his photography work, at the opening of a Blondie pop-up shop in London and entitled ‘’ A la recherche du punk perdu’’ and Stein was joined by Eddie Duggan. This event took place at the University of Suffolk.
In his personal life, Chris has been married to actress Barbara Sicuranza since 1999; the couple lives in New York and has two daughters Akira and Valentina – Akira’s godmother is his friend and colleague, Debbie Harry.
