Lee has made it into the Sun's 'Reality Star Rich List' - one of those odd lists that newspapers of the Sunday variety like to compile. As you can't access the Sun's website without paying, here's the text. There's also a nice photo of Lee that I haven't seen before (it looks recent) - he's wearing a purple shirt and the photo looks like it's from a photo shoot.

40. LEE MEAD £1.7million
He's hung up his dreamcoat, but the former Mr VO is still earning huge.

He may be most famous for marrying Denise Van Outen, his judge on 2007's 'Any Dream Will Do', but musical star Lee has gone from strength to strength since winning the BBC search to find Joseph. By the time he hung up his technicolour dreamcoat after 18 months, he'd netted £500,000.
The former cruise ship singer's marriage lasted just three years, but the pair remain friends for the sake of four-year-old daughter Betsy. Denise, 40, publically copngratulated Lee, 33, when he won a £100,000 role in 'Casualty' last year. Lee has also released four albums, appeared in 'Wicked', 'Legally Blonde' and 'Phantom Of The Opera', which all earned him £350,000, and netted £100,000 playing Robin Hood in pantomime last year.
However, Lee's biggest earner has been four massively successful tours, raking in around £500,000. He also made £300,000 from a sell-out tour of Japan, and earns £3,500 for personal appearances.
As well as trying to crack Hollywood, Lee has been in talks to appear in a musical version of 'Roman Holiday' and to play tragic rock star Marc Bolan on stage, which could earn him more than £50,000.

And he's worth every penny!! Or is it pence?

Interesting! I wonder how accurate that really is? They got the number of albums wrong so probably not at all!

I really don't know what to make of this. On the one hand, it makes very interesting reading - but on the other hand, the article is so badly written and riddled with inaccuracies that we know of, making you wonder if the financial facts are correct (and how do they get hold of this information anyway?).

Here's what it says about how they gathered the info:-

*We have analysed the identifiable wealth the celebrities have - e.g. book book deals, TV contracts, media columns, salaries paid to them from their own companies, etc. We have not included wealth held in private bank accounts as we have no access to this information.

*We have excluded privately held stocks, hedge funds or share portfolios.

*Land and property is valued on comparable prices for that area and may not always reflect the exact amount paid.

*Our valuations are based on our analysis. The actual size of people's fortunes may be different from our figures, as assets can increase or decrease in value.

*We have not included family wealth, trust funds or inheritences, but have tried to identify who benefits from this and noted it where relevant.

*We have consulted a large network of agents, managers and publicists who have guided us on the types of fees celebrities earn from deals and endorsments.

*In some cases, PR agents have co-operated with us and supplied information about their clients' wealth, but we have independantly verified the information given to us and checked its reliability.

There are some errors in the info in Lee's entry, but I think the panto figure and the Casualty figure are believable. Ditto the personal appearance figure.

Despite the above explanation, I suspect the process of drawing up the 'Reality Rich List' is not entirely rigorous! It probably involves a bit of googling to see what work an individual has done in recent years plus a lot of 'guestimates' as what they might have earned for each job. I think Lee would probably have a good laugh if he were to see this ("Comedy!").

On the other hand, good for Lee if figures like the £100k for panto are anywhere near accurate! And it is nice to see an article which looks so positively upon Lee's achievements since winning Joseph

Well the Sun is famous for lying and making up what they can't find out, so I would take this with a pinch of salt.

Like all articles there is a mix of truth, guessing and mixed up facts. But it gets his name out there in a good light so I say good.