Neymar Jr., Professional Footballer, $200 million

Neymar Jr. was catapulted to fortune in a single transfer to PSG in 2017. He extended this contract in 2021 with the team to 2025. He now earns a salary of $42M making him one of the highest-paid athletes in the world. But this success is a far opposite of what his life was like growing up.

Neymar came from a low-income family. His father worked three jobs to keep the family afloat, and at one point, they had to live with their grandparents to ease the financial difficulty of staying in their own home as they couldn’t pay most of their bills.