Kandi Burruss Reveals Low Salary She Earned From First Tour With Xscape

The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss’ success in business and entertainment should be applauded. But her rise to financial freedom was not an easy one. In fact, Burruss admits that she made major mistakes along the way. She recently explained how her first recording deal as a member of the R&B girl group XSCAPE was faulty, and she earned a low salary. 

Kandi Burruss says her first recording contract was crappy

Burruss joined XSCAPE when she was just 14. Within a year, the group landed a recording contract with Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def Records. Their first single, “Just Kickin’ It,” was an instant hit, and the group’s success was overnight. But, the money was not rolling as they expected it to.

In an interview with Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Burruss explained that XSCAPE’s first deal was not promising financially. In fact, she says the group was so green and trusting that many mistakes were made within their business affairs. She said: 

We learned a lot of things on the job, after the fact. I don’t think anybody’s first deal is going to be great. And I don’t have any regrets about that, simply because when you’re first trying to get a deal and are first trying to get in the door, who are you? You have to get there to really be demanding. So, it wasn’t a lot of money for the first deal. We were just going along and doing what we were told to do as far as our managers or the people who were in place to tell us, because we didn’t really know. Tiny and I were underage when we signed the deal, so our mamas had to co-sign on the dotted line with us.

The ‘RHOA’ star says an accountant was stealing her money, and she earned a low salary

New artists having shady contracts is not a foreign concept. But there’s always shadier people in the music business to take advantage of young and impressionable starlets. And Burruss says she and her group members were no exceptions. 

“We had a lot of big learning lessons. We had an accountant that stole from us. I think after the first tour – we really didn’t make a lot of money off of our first album. But we felt like we were doing shows every weekend. We were on a tour, and we were doing separate shows on weekends outside of what we were doing on the tour. So we’re like, ‘Where the money at?’ And it wasn’t that much money. For weeks and weeks of touring, we only had like $30,000 a piece,” she told Sharpe.

It wasn’t until the success of their second album that the group was able to renegotiate their contract and earn higher percentages. But the group disbanded in 1998.

She’s now one of the highest-paid reality stars and businesswomen 

After the group disbanded, Burruss began earning money as a songwriter and producer. She did release her own solo project, but the success was mediocre compared to her work with XSCAPE, so she focused on being part of the business aspect.

She later opened businesses in fashion, adult toys, and cosmetics, as well as an actor, and with her own entertainment and management company. Burruss joined RHOA in its second season and is now the longest-running cast member of the franchise. She reportedly earns over $2 million per season, has had multiple spinoff specials and shows, and is reporetdly the highest-paid reality star on Bravo.