Eldra Patrick DeBarge was born on the 4th June, 1961 in Detroit, Michigan, USA of French, English, African-American and Native American ancestry. He is a singer, musician, composer, song writer as well as a record producer. El rose to fame as the main vocalist of the family band DeBarge, and later pursued a solo career. He is a nominee for three Grammy Awards. El DeBarge has been active in the music industry since 1979.
How rich is the singer? It has been estimated that the overall size of El DeBarge’s net worth is as much as $1.5 million, as of the data presented in mid-2016.
El Debarge Net Worth $1.5 Million
To begin with, El was raised in a big family, although suffered domestic abuse. El sang in various choirs during his childhood, and was trained privately by the vocalist Ricky Callier, who helped him to choose the path of his future career which would later add huge sums to the total size of El DeBarge’s net worth.
The musical family DeBarge moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1977 they founded the band. The members were Bernd Lichter from Hamburg, Tommy and Bobby DeBarge along with Jody Sims, Greg Williams, Phillip Ingram and Eddie Fill. They signed a recording contract with Motown and soon appeared on R&B charts with quite successful hits. Later, Bernd Lichter discovered the vocal talents of other DeBarge family members, so El, Mark, Randy and Bunny DeBarge were also invited join the band. Eventually, they also received record deals with Motown and formed the DeBarge band in 1980. All members of the band were DeBarge family members – Bunny, Mark, Randy, El, James, Bobby and Chico. In 1981 their debut album “The DeBarges” was released which largely fell short of expectations. However, their following albums “All This Love” (1982), “In a Special Way” (1983) and “Rhythm of the Night” (1985) were all certified gold in the USA. More, all of them entered the top 5 on Billboard’s R&B chart.
El Debarge decided to start his solo career in 1986. The same year he released the album “El DeBarge” which was certified gold and rose to 8th position on the R&B chart; however, it was the best studio album released by El, so far. Later, he released studio albums “Gemini” (1989), “In the Storm” (1992), “Heart, Mind and Soul” (1994), and “Second Chance” (2010) although none of them repeated the success of the first album.
Since 1995, El has experienced many legal problems related to his drug abuse, including serving more than a year in a prison. Later, he was arrested several times because of possession of various controlled substances or drugs, and was given probations. In 2010, he announced going through rehab, and in 2012, he appeared at the Grammy Awards ceremony stating he was clean.
Finally, in the personal life of the singer, El claims to be single yet he rarely gives interviews about his private life. He has apparently never married, although he has fathered twelve children among which are Kendall Ferguson, Melody Robinson and Adris DeBarge. The latter is his first child whom he fathered being only 15 years old – a personal history as intriguing as his professional life.
