With the economic crisis caused by this year’s pandemic, the total earned by these top-paid celebrities was $200 million less than in 2019, but still racked up a substantial amount… a total of $6.1 billion before taxes and fees, to be exact.
According to Forbes, lots of celebrities’ incomes were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that cancelled tours, meet and greets, and many such other social events that their careers depended upon.
This major decline was the first ever since 2016, following the infamous “richest fight ever” between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao that earned them half a billion dollars to share.
This caused the likes of many musicians, such as Taylor Swift for instance, to lose their previous positions in the rank. From being at the top of the list last year, the lost revenue from cancelled tours and shows caused her to fall down to 25th.
However, Kylie Jenner replaced her in top position, having ranked $590 million thanks to her cosmetics line. She sold a majority stake (51%) of Kylie Cosmetics to Koty, granting her this massive chunk of income. Luckily, another member of her family, Kanye West, also came second.
Kanye West earned $170 million, significantly less than Kylie but still a massively large sum. Most of his revenue came from his Yeezy collaboration with Adidas.
Just after him in third place, was Roger Federer the professional tennis player, who summed up to make $106.3 million. He is the first sports player to earn one of the top spots in the list.
In fourth, is Cristiano Ronaldo, the celebrity footballer, who racked up $105 million this year. Another sportsman first: he is the first team player to earn a billion during his career.
Further down the list, however, at no.90 is Naomi Osaka who beat her own records for being the first female athlete to rank up the most amount of money in a single year: $37 million.
Many streaming giants unsurprisingly, overtook celebrity names in the rank. Considering that many people had to stay in, and became deeply affiliated with their Amazon Prime or Netflix accounts, it is fairly understandable. They ranked up $300 million total, over certain stars on the list, such as: Ryan Reynolds, placing at no.18 with $71.5 million; Billie Eillish, no.43 with $53 million; Jerry Seinfeld, no. 46, $51 million.
Interestingly though, for the first year podcasts made an appearance on this list.
Bill Simmons and his company The Ringer made $206 million after being bought by Spotify in February, placing him at no.13. The Hamilton creator and star that had taken the previous years of Broadway by storm, Lin-Manuel Miranda, placed himself at no.62 when Disney bought over the filming rights to broadcast his musical on the screen.
If you are interested more on celebrities and how they’ve changed over the years, check out these viral ‘then and now’ pictures of your fan-favorites!
