Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has earned more than 80 billion won ($75.6 million) from lectures in the decade since he left office in 2001.
In federal financial records, CNN reported Tuesday that Clinton earned $10.8 million for 52 speeches in 2010, $7.5 million for 36 in 2009 and $10.2 million for 57 in 2006.
Clinton's lecture fees were detailed in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's annual financial disclosure report which was released Monday.
Almost half of the former President's speech earnings, $4.8 million last year, came from 13 foreign countries including Mexico, India, South Africa and the Philippines. The remainder came from 34 speeches made in the United States.
Clinton earned $181,000 per speech as he lectured 417 times. Almost two-thirds of his speech earnings, $44.9 million, came from the 215 speeches made overseas. The former President’s most popular destination outside the United States have been Canada, followed by Britain and Mexico.
His annual speech earnings have varied each year depending on his schedule and availability. In 2004, Clinton gave only six paid speeches for $875,000 when he focused most of his time on authoring his memoir, “My Life,” and recovering from heart bypass surgery. According to politics magazine Politico, the former president’s memoir has also made him more than $15 million.
It is not unusual for a former president to earn millions of dollars from speeches after leaving the office. Clinton is the only one subject to direct disclosure due to the position of his wife, Hilary Clinton, as the secretary of state. The Center for Public Integrity, a public interest watchdog, estimated in May that former president George W. Bush has delivered 140 speeches for $15 million in the two years since his presidency.
The Clintons left the White House with an estimated $12 million in legal debts for campaign fundraising and the Monica Lewinsky investigation. “I never had a nickel to my name until I got out of the White House, and now I’m a millionaire, the most favored person for the Washington Republicans,” Clinton told an audience in Kentucky last fall.