Sia Sells Half Her Catalog and Keeps the Face

Sia sold 50 percent of her publishing and master rights to Pophouse for $180 million, and kept her name and likeness. The Swedish firm co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus confirmed the partnership on Oct. 1, 2026, without printing a price.

The figure came from legal papers in her divorce. The avatar concert that would make the bet pay is still a couple of years out, and she still owns the face those avatars would copy.

Half the Catalog, None of the Face

Pophouse Entertainment said from Stockholm that it had bought 50 percent of her publishing and masters. The Adelaide-born writer of “Chandelier” and “Cheap Thrills” keeps the other half. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

The press note did not mention a dollar figure, an avatar, or her image. It promised “creative initiatives across a variety of formats” and placed the buy inside Pophouse Fund I, the firm’s first fund, which closed in March 2025 at a hard cap of more than €1 billion ($1.1 billion), plus more than €200 million in co-investment vehicles, for a total raise of more than €1.2 billion.

This is the firm’s third artist partnership of 2026, after a majority stake in Tina Turner’s music interests in March and a stake in Iron Maiden in July. The roster already holds Kiss, Cyndi Lauper, Avicii, and Swedish House Mafia.

I’m really excited to be working with Pophouse. These songs mean so much to me, and I love that they really understand that and want to take care of them. I’ve been making music for a very long time now, and it feels exciting to think about all the new and different ways these songs might get to live on and find people.

Sia, statement with the Oct. 1 announcement

Jessica Koravos, Pophouse’s chief executive, called Sia’s “unique creative identity” a reason to partner. Fund partner Shahriar Shokofan went further, calling her “a truly unstoppable force” and pointing at songwriting as much as the records she sings.

A person familiar with the deal says the live plan is an immersive digital avatar production that uses her vocals as a performer and as a writer, including on Rihanna’s “Diamonds.” The debut is at least a couple of years away. It may tour selected cities. It is still in early planning. Pophouse’s stake does not include name and likeness.

Divorce Papers Priced the Songs at $180 Million

Pophouse never put $180 million in a release. The number became public on Sept. 30, 2026, through legal documents from Sia’s split with Daniel Bernad, whom she married in December 2022 and against whom she filed in March 2025.

Those papers treat the catalog the way a settlement treats a house. Hits written before the marriage sit in one pile. Songs written after the wedding sit in another. The buyer is a music fund. The public math is a divorce instrument.

HOW THE $180 MILLION SPLITS

• Pre-marriage hits: $165 million covers songs written before the December 2022 wedding, a group the papers name as including “Chandelier,” “Titanium,” and “Cheap Thrills.”
• Marriage-era songs: $15 million is tied to work written after the wedding, a slice some of the filings describe as held until the two sides agree how to divide it.
• Waiver payment: Bernad agreed to drop any claim on the $165 million in exchange for $1 million.
• Monthly support: The same papers set child support at $42,500 a month.

An insider puts writing and performance royalties on her songs at about $18 million a year. Half of $180 million implies a $360 million tag on the whole set, which is 20 times that royalty run-rate. Music catalogs typically trade at 12-25x net publisher’s share, so the multiple sits inside the normal band for a proven pop writer, not above it.

The check also arrives while a court is still dating each song. That is why the price leaked at all.

Why the Wig Already Looks Like an Avatar

Sia has spent more than a decade building a career in which the face is optional. Around late 2012 and early 2013 she settled on an oversized blonde bob that covers the eyes, a look she later compared to Amy Winehouse’s bouffant. On the 2014 album 1000 Forms of Fear, the cover was the wig on a black field. Dancers, among them Maddie Ziegler, took the camera. Sia often sang with her back to the room.

If anyone besides famous people knew what it was like to be a famous person, they would never want to be famous.

Sia, 2013 op-ed

On a 2016 carpool segment with James Corden she was blunt about the costume. “I don’t wear this if there aren’t cameras around. I only wear this to maintain a modicum of privacy,” she said. She had already told Nightline she did not want to be “famous or recognizable,” and that she did not want her looks picked apart online.

That history is why this buyer fits, and why the missing likeness is not a small clause. Pophouse makes money by putting a digital body on a stage and selling tickets to people who already know the songs. Sia has been selling the songs while lending the eyes to someone else. An avatar of a blonde wig is, in a crude way, what her live show already is.

It is also why she could sell the catalog and still refuse the face. Kiss sold the makeup. Tina Turner’s package included her name and image. Iron Maiden sold a stake in Eddie. Sia sold the records and kept the disguise.

A 3,000-Seat Box in East London Prints the Model

Pophouse is a founding investor in ABBA Voyage, the 1979-era “ABBAtar” residency that opened in May 2022 inside a purpose-built 3,000-seat arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Aniara Ltd, the UK company behind the show and a Pophouse-group holding, filed 2024 accounts that still look like a hit musical, not a fading novelty.

ABBA VOYAGE IN 2024

• Performances: 374 shows, the same count as the year before, in the 3,000-seat ABBA Arena.
• Tickets: 1.06 million sold, a slip from 1.1 million in 2023, at more than 90 percent occupancy.
• Turnover: £104.34 million, with £99.65 million from ticket sales.

A December 2025 impact study by Sound Diplomacy, covering May 2022 through May 2025, found the residency had drawn over 3.5 million visitors since opening, 18 percent of them from outside the UK. It put UK turnover at £2.06 billion over those three years, with 19 percent of activity staying in the local East London boroughs, and said the show supported 9,739 workers a year.

That is the product Pophouse is trying to clone. Kiss Forever is aimed at Las Vegas in 2028. Iron Maiden’s deal points at a digital universe around Eddie. Koravos has already talked about creative projects for Tina Turner. Sia is the living pop writer in that queue, and the only one in it who did not sell her face with the songs.

Kiss and Iron Maiden Sold the Face Too

When Pophouse closed Fund I, it described its method in one sentence. The firm said it captures three rights at once: publishing, recording, and NIL rights. NIL is the legal permission to put a person’s image, or a band’s makeup, on a hologram. Without it, the soundtrack can still be licensed. The digital body cannot.

Sia’s contract stops at the first two rights. The table is the tell.

WHAT POPHOUSE BOUGHT

Koravos took over as chief executive before this year’s buying spree. Conni Jonsson, the EQT founder who started Pophouse with Ulvaeus in 2014, has described the method as using the “ABBA toolbox”: buy the rights, then build a room people will fly to. Sia’s deal funds the songs. It does not, on paper, fund the room.

That gap can be closed later with a separate likeness license. Nothing in the Oct. 1 statement says it has been.

Nine Tracks Over a Billion Streams

The catalog Pophouse is paying for is a writer’s catalog as much as a singer’s. “Diamonds,” which she wrote for Rihanna, has more than 2 billion Spotify streams. “Titanium,” her David Guetta collaboration, sits at 2.4 billion. The Pophouse note also lists nine Grammy nominations and names “Unstoppable,” “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart,” and “Cheap Thrills” as the spine of the set.

SIA SONGS PAST A BILLION ON SPOTIFY

A show that can use her voice on the records she sang and the hits she gave away is the version Pophouse wants. That is also the version that needs her permission to look like her, or permission to look like the wig, or a new visual that is neither. The Oct. 1 papers do not say which.

The Concert Is Years Away

On the day of the announcement, the public conversation went to the divorce before it went to the hologram. People counted the $165 million pile of pre-marriage hits and the $1 million waiver, and treated the catalog as property because that is how the filings read. The avatar plan, still years from a city or a date, sat behind that math.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The rights: Pophouse is buying 50 percent of publishing and master recording rights through Fund I, with customary closing conditions still outstanding.
• The price: Legal documents in the Bernad divorce put the stake at $180 million; Pophouse has not confirmed that number.
• The face: Name and likeness stay with Sia.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The show: No city, venue, or opening year has been announced for the avatar production.
• The image: No public license covers a digital Sia, a digital wig, or a touring stand-in.
• The marriage-era slice: The $15 million tied to songs written after December 2022 still depends on how those filings are closed.

Until a likeness deal exists, Pophouse owns half the soundtrack of a concert it cannot yet cast. Sia has the check, half the catalog, and the wig. The songs can go on without her face. They have for years.