The world’s highest-paid celebrities earned a combined $6.1 billion before taxes and fees, a $200 million drop from 2019, after the global pandemic shuttered stadiums and silenced performances around the world. The decline was the first since 2016, the year after Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao earned nearly half a billion dollars between them from the richest fight in boxing history. But even with Covid-19 lurking–and America on fire in every sense of the word following the murder of George Floyd–the show still went on.
The top earning celebrities were Kylie Jenner and Kanye West, who brought in $590 million and $170 million, respectively. West collected most of his earnings from his Yeezy sneakers deal with Adidas, while Jenner’s payday came from selling a 51% stake in her cosmetics firm to Coty in January. While she had exaggerated over the years about the size of her business, the money she pulled in from the deal was real–enough to rank as one of the biggest celebrity cashouts of all time.
Three streaming giants doled out $300 million to stars on the list, including Ryan Reynolds (No. 18, $71.5 million), Billie Eilish (No. 43, $53 million) and Jerry Seinfeld (No. 46, $51 million), with Netflix paying out more than two thirds of that.
Live shows drove career-best income for some of music’s biggest names, with Ed Sheeran’s Divide Tour drawing 8.9 million fans and grossing $776 million over two-plus years to surpass U2’s all-time record for a single tour. Others will take a hit next year as tours for everyone from Taylor Swift (No. 25, $63.5 million) to Paul McCartney (No. 93, $37 million) have been cancelled because of the pandemic.
In sports, Roger Federer (No. 3, $106.3 million) is the first tennis player to earn the top spot among athletes on the list, while soccer’s Cristiano Ronaldo (No. 4, $105 million) became the first team player to earn $1 billion during his career. Naomi Osaka set her own record at No. 90, bringing in $37 million income, the most money any female athlete has ever made in a single year.
Podcasting makes its first appearance in the voice of Bill Simmons (No.13, $82.5 million), who sold his podcast company The Ringer to Spotify in February for $206 million. Another newcomer: Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda (No. 62, $45.5 million), who added to his haul from the Broadway hit in February when Walt Disney paid $75 million for the rights to air the filmed version of his Founding Father musical. Miranda joined a chorus of celebrities using their fame to speak out after the killing of Floyd: “It’s up to us, in words and deeds, to stand up for our fellow citizens.” He’s one of a growing group of stars working to enact systemic change. More than a dozen on the Celebrity 100 have invested or otherwise worked with Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund, which aims to expand investment opportunities and access to tech jobs among African Americans.
A full list of the 100 is below, plus further reading about the business behind the biggest stars.
KYLIE JENNER:
- The reality TV star sold 51% of Kylie Cosmetics to publicly traded Coty, Inc. in January 2019 for $600 million; she pocketed $540 million, pretax.
- Documents later showed the business was much smaller than the family claimed for years.
- Jenner first appeared on Forbes Billionaires list in March 2019 at age 21; she is now worth roughly $900 million.
- Kylie Cosmetics, which had 2019 revenue of $200 million, was built on the back of a social media following that reaches more than 175 million people.
- Jenner used $250,000 of her earnings from modeling to pay an outside company for her first 15,000 lip kits, which sold out in minutes in 2015.
- One of the family stars on “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” Jenner remains in charge of creative efforts and marketing for Kylie Cosmetics.
KANYE WEST
- New information about Kanye West’s deal with Adidas for sneaker brand Yeezy convinced Forbes to call the entrepreneur and musician a billionaire.
- He gets an annual royalty from Adidas, which makes Yeezy shoes. The Yeezy brand pulled in an estimated $1.3 billion in sales in 2019.
- Separately, West also has a Yeezy apparel line. He owns his brands outright.
- West’s Sunday Service, an invitation-only confab mostly in Southern California, has reportedly drawn the likes of Katy Perry and Dave Chappelle.
ROGER FEDERER:
- Roger Federer is the world’s highest-paid athlete for the first time, thanks to an unmatched portfolio of lucrative endorsement deals.
- The biggest prize in his stable is Japanese apparel brand Uniqlo, which locked him up in 2018 under a 10-year, $300 million deal.
- Federer has won $130 million in prize money in his career, but the total is dwarfed by his off-court earnings from appearances and endorsements.
- The greatest men’s tennis player of all time briefly returned to the No. 1 ranking in 2018, becoming the oldest man by more than three years to do it.
- His eponymous foundation has raised more than $50 million and educated 1.5 million children in Africa since its launch.
CHRISTIANO RONALDO
- Ronaldo is the most followed athlete on social media. His Instagram followers hit 200 million in 2020.
- The Portuguese star joined Juventus in 2018 after nine years with Real Madrid. He took a pay cut with his four-year deal worth $64 million annually.
- Within 24 hours of release, Juventus sold 520,000 Ronaldo jerseys worth over $60 million.
- He was the club’s top scorer, with 28 goals during the 2018-19 season on the way to the club winning both the Serie A title and the Italian Super Cup.
- He has won FIFA’s Player of the Year five times and is the all-time leading goal scorer in the UEFA Champions League.
LIONEL MESSI
- Messi has been awarded both FIFA’s Player of the Year and the European Golden Shoe for top scorer on the continent a record six times.
- His current Barcelona contract is through 2020-21 and pays him over $80 million annually. He also has a lifelong deal with Adidas.
- His 438 goals, including 36 hat tricks for Barcelona, is a club and La Liga record.
- The Argentinian superstar launched his own clothing line and opened his first retail outlet, The Messi Store, in September 2019 in Barcelona.
- The World Health Organization tapped Messi in March 2020 to help lead a worldwide campaign aimed at stopping the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Source: Forbes
