What is Peter Yarrow's net worth? Folk singer passes way from bladder cancer

US folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary's vocalist, Peter Yarrow, has passed away at age 86 after years of battling cancer. A representative of the singer, songwriter, and political activist confirmed the news to Entertainment Weekly. He reportedly died on the morning of Tuesday, January 6, in New York City because of bladder cancer, which he was diagnosed with four years ago.

Yarrow's daughter, Bethany, also confirmed the news in a statement, per Entertainment Weekly, which reads:

"Our fearless dragon is turned and has entered the last chapter of his magnificent life."

Her statement referenced one of Peter, Paul and Mary's hit song, Puff, the Magic Dragon, which the late musician co-wrote. Bethany Yarrow's statement further reads:

"The world knows Peter Yarrow the iconic folk activist, but the human being behind the legend is every bit as generous, creative, passionate, playful, and wise as his lyrics suggest."

Peter Yarrow, whose net worth reached $5 million when he passed, per Celebrity Net Worth, is best known as the one-third of the Peter, Paul and Mary folk music trio, but he also appeared in over 60 different albums as a performer.

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Peter Yarrow earned his $5 million fortune as a musician

Peter Yarrow's musical career started with performing at folk clubs in New York City, per The Guardian. However, meeting Albert Grossman, who later became his manager, in 1960 while performing at the Newport folk festival would change his career path. Grossman reportedly recommended that he meet with Mary Travers to form a "Weavers for the baby-boom generation," per the outlet. Travers was allegedly the one to recommend Paul Stookey to complete their trio, and the rest is history.

By 1961, Peter, Paul and Mary performed for the first time in New York and signed with Warner Brothers. Their cover of Pete Seeger's If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song) became a hit in 1962, even reaching the Billboard Top 10 list in the US. They leveraged their notoriety to release their first self-titled album that same year, which reached the US Top 10 for 10 months and stayed in the Top 20 chart for two years.

In 1963, the folk trio became even more popular with their cover of Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind. They also released Puff, The Magic Dragon, a song Peter Yarrow co-wrote, which became a children's music staple, that same year. A cover of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane was their final hit in 1969 before Yarrow's conviction for taking indecent liberties with a 14-year-old girl and the trio's split the following year.

Peter Yarrow spent only three months in jail after President Jimmy Carter pardoned him in 1981. However, their 1970 split wasn't the end of Peter, Paul and Mary because they reunited eight years later. Yarrow and Stookey also continued to perform together and separately as solo artists after Traver's passing in 2009.

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With Yarrow's passing, the last surviving member of Peter, Paul and Mary, Paul Stookey, remembered his former bandmate in a heartfelt message via Entertainment Weekly. He said that he found a "brother" in Yarrow, adding:

"He was best man at my wedding and I at his. He was loving 'uncle' to my three daughters. And, while his comfort in the city and my love of the country tended to keep us apart geographically, our different perspectives were celebrated often in our friendship and our music."

Meanwhile, Bethany Yarrow asked fans to donate to Operation Respect, the educational non-profit Peter Yarrow co-founded, instead of sending flowers, per Entertainment Weekly.