Forbes Highest Paid Celebrities List 2017: Diddy, Beyonce, J.K. Rowling Take the Lead
Forbes has recently released its list of highest paid celebrities for 2017.
According to its report, the world's 100 highest-paid celebrities earned a total amount of $5.15 billion, which is larger than the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of Belize, Liberia and Gambia. This year's list is topped by the likes of Diddy, Beyoncé and J.K. Rowling.
Despite not releasing music, Sean Combs — also known as Diddy or P. Diddy — led the list of this year's highest-earning celebrities, banking as much as $130 million over 12 months. His income mostly came from the sale of a large portion of Sean John clothing equity as well as his still ongoing partnership with Diageo's Ciroc vodka.
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Diddy also managed to increase his overall wealth to $820 million this year because of a North American headline tour in 2016, and several releases from other artists under the Bad Boy Records label.
Taking the second top spot of the list is Beyoncé, who accumulated $105 million for the past year because of her successful "Formation" tour as well as the launch of her famous "Lemonade" album. Her husband settled for the 55th spot this year, partly because of his earnings from premium music streaming service TIDAL.
"Harry Potter" book series author J.K. Rowling took the third-place slot of the highest-earning celebrities for 2017 for banking as much as $95 million over the year. She released "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" in 2016, and she also wrote the screenplay for the blockbuster fantasy movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."
Trailing behind Rowling is Drake, who earned $94 million because of his frequent touring. Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo closes the top-five ranking for raking in as much as $93 million.
According to The Independent, a low number of women made it to Forbes' list, with only 16 female celebrities featured in total. Cumulatively, these women made $822.5 million, which is lower than last year's $892.5 million. Not one female actor also made it to the list this year, as compared with the 10 male actors that did, which include Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart, Jackie Chan and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
