Forbes magazine has just revealed its annual Celeb 100 list, chronicling the world’s highest-paid entertainers over the past year. The list features a wide range of talents from all over the globe including a British chef, a Canadian rapper and a Russian tennis star, but sitting pretty at the top of the list is boxer Floyd Mayweather with an exorbitant 300 million dollars raked in just this year.
Mayweather’s windfall from his defeat of Manny Pacquiao on the May 2 Pay-Per-View boxing match also gives him the distinction of having the greatest one-year income of any athlete in history. However, match loser Pacquiao still wins second place on the Forbes’ Celebrity 100 for his still-impressive $160 million earnings from the same match.
The highest paid woman celebrity in the world is singer-songwriter Katy Perry, whose 2015 earnings total $135 million, landing her third on the list and the subject of the magazine’s cover story. Forbes sites the “Dark Horse” singer’s global presence as a top entertainer for financial success; out of 124 concerts during her Prismatic World Tour, 75 of them took place outside of the United States, and her managers say 60 percent of her income stems from foreign markets.
Bringing up the No. 4 spot with $130 million is British boyband One Direction, with the majority of their earnings coming from their 75-date world tour that hit every continent except Antarctica. The group of guys all under 23 years old, which said farewell to member Zayn Malik in March, earned more than twice that of The Rolling Stones in 2015.
Rounding out the list’s top five highest-earning celebrities this year is “America’s Got Talent” host Howard Stern at No. 5, with earnings of $95 million. At No. 6 is country-singer Garth Brooks ($90 million), followed by fiction author James Patterson ($89 million).
Tied for eighth place are actor Robert Downey Jr. ($80 million) and Taylor Swift, who was also named among Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women in the World, at No. 64.
Forbes has reported there are only three couples who’ve made it onto the list this year – and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West aren’t one of them. As they both appeared on last year’s Top 100 list, this probably means at least one of them has been knocked out this year. It’s most likely to be Kim Kardashian who ranked 80th last year. Reports have alleged that the next three series of Keeping up with the Kardiashians have earned $100m – but Kim has to split the profits with her family.
Because Forbes have only accounted for pure annual earnings (previously it took into account social media, magazine covers and press coverage), Kim’s huge social media following (she has over 37m Instagram followers) will no longer benefit her ranking.
Source: Forbes