Embattled Business Manager Lou Taylor Settles Into Multimillion-Dollar L.A. Home

Behind almost every high net worth individual is a team of lawyers, financial advisors and accountants. But certain types of celebrities, particularly Hollywood types and professional sports figures, tend to gain affluence very rapidly. And so many of those folks have extra layers of help — talent agents and specialized money managers to assist in creating empires. While the clients are busy perfecting their assorted talents, the business managers step in to handle investments, rein in big spending and strategize about how to limit tax exposure. (That’s the idea, anyway.)

Most Hollywood money managers tend to steadfastly shun the spotlight, content with a role in the proverbial shadows. They also overwhelmingly tend to be male and on the older side. But tell all that to Louise “Lou” Taylor, who started a management firm while still in her 20s and has become something of a celebrity herself, a media-friendly personality who cuts a strikingly stylish figure in distinct contrast to other managers. Perhaps it’s that unconventional approach that’s helped her business — Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group, now approaching its 30th birthday — become inordinately successful.

Today, Taylor boasts one of Hollywood’s most impressive client rosters. While many of those clients are top musicians — Steven Tyler, Post Malone, Travis Scott and Sean “Diddy” Combs, just to name a few — she also reps the Kardashian family empire and high-ranking entertainment execs like Bozoma Saint John. More infamously, Taylor also represented Britney Spears for nearly 15 years, ever since Spears began her long-running conservatorship.

Taylor’s association with Spears has made the former a controversial public figure. Tri Star and Spears parted professional ways in late 2020, with the latter accusing the former of mishandling her money and charging exorbitant fees. Spears even publicly called Taylor herself out in a scathing Instagram post, saying she orchestrated the conservatorship and installed cameras to secretly monitor the pop star. Taylor was recently profiled in several Spears documentaries, each of them painting her in a decidedly unflattering light. (For her part, Taylor has steadfastly denied the salacious charges lobbed against her.)

Conflicting accounts have also emerged about Taylor herself. Britney’s father Jamie Spears famously called her “the smartest person in any room,” while Courtney Love shares Britney’s disdain for Taylor. In 2019, Taylor was named the Hollywood Reporter’s Business Manager Icon of the year, with glowing statements from powerful friends like Endeavor’s Patrick Whitesell.

The only thing everyone agrees about is that Taylor has become highly successful. Tri Star now has more than 100 employees, and two giant offices in Nashville and California. In Nashville, Taylor recently sold the company’s 12,000-square-foot headquarters to upgrade into an even larger commercial complex. And in L.A., Tri Star has 16,000 square feet of office space in one of the flashiest buildings on L.A.’s iconic Sunset Strip.

As her practice has become increasingly huge, Taylor’s own real estate circumstances have dramatically changed. Though she spends much of her time in Nashville, she also keeps an L.A. outpost. Way back in 2015, she paid $870,000 for a relatively humble cottage in the Hollywood Hills; last year, she sold that place for $1.3 million and upgraded to a $3.5 million contemporary home in the trendy Beverly Grove neighborhood, near West Hollywood and the sexy Melrose Avenue shopping/dining district. Like its owner, the house stands out from the neighborhood crowd, a glitzy blip on a street mostly littered with far humbler bungalows.