Sangeeta Bose Moneycontrol News
Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan are only the three Indian celebrities to have made it to the coveted Forbes Highest Paid Celebs List this year, with a combined fortune of USD 110.5 million.
The Forbes Global Celebrity 100 list ranks 'front of the camera' celebrities around the globe using their pretax earnings in the last one year.
Shah Rukh Khan is the highest ranked-Indian on the list at No. 65 with a worth of USD 38 million, Salman Khan at No. 71 with USD 37 million and Akshay Kumar at No. 80 with USD 35.5 million.
Amitabh Bachchan, who featured in 2015 list at No. 71, has missed the bus this time too and not figured among the top 100 paid celebrities. The veteran actor, launched three films last year, two of which , Te3n and Wazir, did not so well at the box office whereas the movie Pink , on the theme of women empowerment, was a popular hit.
Shah Rukh was seen in movies Fan and Dear Zindagi last year. Akshay Kumar had three releases, Airlift, Rustom and Housefull 3 and Salman Khan starred in Sultan which turned out to be one of the highest grossers at the box office.
American Oscar-winning rapper Sean Combs, better known as Diddy, topped the list this time with a total fortune clocked at USD 130 million, one of his career best, as reported by Forbes. The rapper’s high earnings come mostly from the sale of a chunk of equity from his clothing line named Sean John and his ongoing partnership with Diageo’s Ciroc vodka.
Singer Beyonce and Author J.K. Rowling have figured in top three, with each clocking in USD 105 million and USD 95 million respectively.
A major chunk of the list comprises musicians, with two athletes – Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and NBA basketball player Le Bron James figuring in the top 10.
Another recent game that has seen enriching the celebrity cash flow is the new entertainment economy with the Netflix and Spotify models that directly enrich stars for merely streaming their content.
Celebrities like Canadian singer The Weeknd, who doled out the popular hit “Starboy” in 2016, had made their music debut on Youtube itself back in 2010.
Clubbed together, the world’s highest paid celebrities banked a USD 5.15 billion pretax from the June 2016 to June 2017 period.
This year only 5 percent of the celebrities hail from Asia.
Surprisingly, this time no female actors have figured in the top 100 list. To further add to that, women just make up 16 percent of the world’s top-earning celebrities, reflecting the imbalance in gender pay gap. Cumulatively, the women in the list made USD 822.5 million, down from last year’s USD 892.5 million.
The youngest member to feature on the list is 19-year old Keeping up with the Kardarshians star Kylie Jenner, who clocked in earnings of USD 41 million.
The list is prepared by Forbes with estimates and inputs from Nielsen, NPD Bookscan, Pollstar, Box Office Mojo, Songkick, D’Marie and IMDB as well as interviews.
To check out the full list, click here.
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