Floyd Mayweather might have just had the least surprising $300 million payday of all time. His total—the highest annual sum ever for an athlete—mostly comes from his May 2 victory over Manny Pacquiao, who took home $160 million on the year.
Their bout spawned a record 4.4 million Pay-Per-View buys and copious media coverage from Mayweather’s Las Vegas home turf to Pacquiao’s native Philippines.
The boxers rank first and second on this year’s Celebrity 100 list, which measures the earnings of the highest-paid entertainers on the planet over the past 12 months. The third-ranked star, however, may be a bit more unexpected: Katy Perry, who clocked a whopping $135 million. Like many, she was unimpressed by the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.... Full list after the cut.
“I didn’t really watch it,” said Perry, the subject of this year’s Celeb 100 cover story. “But I heard there wasn’t really much to watch, anyway.”
Perry is part of the burgeoning batch of stars cashing in on an increasingly global entertainment landscape. As part of her Prismatic World Tour, she played 124 shows during our scoring period; 75 of them took place abroad, in 27 different countries. According to her managers, 60% of her income now pours in from foreign markets.
One Direction takes the No. 4 spot for similar reasons: The world’s biggest boy band played 74 dates over the past 12 months, averaging seven-figure grosses at every stop, hitting every continent besides Antarctica. Thanks to a strong touring drive—and profound changes in the concert business, spurred by the rise of the global middle class—the group earned more than twice as much as the Rolling Stones.
“You don’t have to go back and play New York, Detroit, Chicago, over and over again,” says Gary Bongiovanni, chief of touring data provider Pollstar. “There are a lot of other territories for artists to play.”
Hollywood is benefiting from this sort of trend as well. Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed $240 million in China, whose monthly box office surpassed the U.S. for the first time this past February. Robert Downey, Jr. (No. 8) earned double-digit millions for playing Iron Man in that film en route to a career-high $80 million payday, tying him with Taylor Swift, whose best-selling album 1989 moved 3.7 million units in 2014.
Meanwhile, Vin Diesel (No. 43) banked $47 million thanks to a back-end cut on Furious 7, which brought in $1.5 billion worldwide. More than $1 billion of that sum came from abroad, including roughly $400 million in China, where it’s the highest-grossing film of all-time. That’s a badge of honor for the ethnically ambiguous Diesel, who told FORBES he’d like to be remembered one day as “the person who brought multiculturalism to the world through my existence.”
FORBES has released the Celeb 100 list every year since 1999, with superstars from Jerry Seinfeld to Beyoncé gracing the cover. Given the profound changes in the entertainment world, we decided to change our methodology a bit this time around. For the first time, we made the list truly international: instead of using U.S.-centric power metrics, we’re simply ranking the world’s 100 highest-paid celebrities, regardless of nationality.
The result is a more accurate reflection of the current entertainment landscape, a 21st century reality where Bollywood’s biggest stars (Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, $33.5 million apiece) earn more than some Hollywood A-listers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Channing Tatum, $29 million apiece).
This year, we also refocused the Celeb 100 by ranking only “front of the camera” talent, jettisoning powerbroker producers who make most of their money behind the scenes. Our list measures money earned from June 1, 2014 to June 1, 2015 before subtracting management fees and taxes; figures are based on data from Nielsen, Pollstar, Box Office Mojo and IMDB, as well as interviews with agents, managers, lawyers—and many of the stars themselves.
Most importantly, we made sure to look for candidates in all corners of the globe, and sure enough, 32 members of this year’s list hail from outside the U.S. The U.K. boasted 13 names ranging from chef Gordon Ramsay (No. 21, $60 million) to singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran (No. 27, $57 million). Other countries sent stars as varied as Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova (No. 88, $29.5 million) and Canadian rapper Drake (No. 54, $39.5 million).
As action star Jackie Chan (No. 38, $50 million) said in our feature story on his Hollywood-to-Beijing empire: “Why this side is yours, this side is mine? Who designed the boundary? I think the world belongs to us.”
The Top 100
1. Floyd Mayweather: $300 million
2. Manny Pacquiao: $160 million
3. Katy Perry: $135 million
4. One Direction: $130 million
5. Howard Stern: $95 million
6. Garth Brooks: $90 million
7. James Patterson: $89 million
8. Robert Downey Jr.: $80 million
9. Taylor Swift: $80 million
10. Cristiano Ronaldo: $79.5 million
11. Rush Limbaugh: $79 million
12. Ellen Degeneres: $75 million
13. Lionel Messi: $74 million
14. The Eagles: $73.5 million
15. Dr. Phil McGraw: $70 million
16. Roger Federer: $67 million
17. Calvin Harris: $66 million
18. LeBron James: $65 million
19. Justin Timberlake: $63.5 million
20. David Copperfield: $63 million
21. Sean Combs: $60 million
21. Gordon Ramsay: $60 million
21. Ryan Seacrest: $60 million
24. Fleetwood Mac: $59.5 million
25. Lady Gaga: $59 million
26. Rolling Stones: $57.5 million
27. Ed Sheeran: $57 million
28. Jay Z: $56 million
29. Beyoncé: $54.5 million
30. Kevin Durant: $52 million
31. Elton John: $53.5 million
32. Toby Keith: $53 million
33. Kim Kardashian: $52.5 million
34. Jennifer Lawrence: $52 million
35. Paul McCartney: $51.5 million
36. Phil Mickelson: $52 million
37. Tiger Woods: $50.5 million
38. Jackie Chan: $50 million
39. Kobe Bryant: $49.5 million
40. Ben Roethlisberger: $49 million
41. Rory McIlroy: $48.5 million
42. Novak Djokovic: $48 million
43. Vin Diesel: $47 million
43. Judy Sheindlin: $47 million
45. Michael Bublé: $45.5 million
46. Gisele Bundchen: $44 million
47. Jason Aldean: $43.5 million
48. Luke Bryan: $42.5 million
49. Kenny Chesney: $42 million
50. Bradley Cooper: $41.5 million
51. Adam Sandler: $41 million
52. Tom Cruise: $40 million
52. Bruno Mars: $40 million
54. Drake: $39.5 million
55. Lewis Hamilton: $39 million
55. Zlatan Ibrahimovic: $39 million
57. Ndamukong Suh: $38.5 million
58. Foo Fighters: $38 million
58. Tim McGraw: $38 million
60. David Guetta: $37 million
61. Florida Georgia Line: $36.5 million
62. Jimmy Buffet: $36 million
62. Jerry Seinfeld: $36 million
62. Tiesto: $36 million
65. Fernando Alonso: $35.5 million
65. Scarlett Johansson: $35.5 million
67. Gareth Bale: $35 million
67. David Letterman: $35 million
69. Jon Lester: $34 million
69. Derrick Rose: $34 million
71. Amitabh Bachchan: $33.5 million
71. Salman Khan: $33.5 million
73. Salman Khan: $33 million
73. Maroon 5: $33 million
73. Sebastian Vettel: $33 million
76. Ashkay Kumar: $32.5 million
76. Rafael Nadal: $32.5 million
78. Zac Brown Band: $32.5 million
78. Mark Wahlberg: $32 million
78. Pharrell Williams: $32 million
81. Dwayne Johnson: $31.5 million
82. Mahendra Singh Dhoni: $31 million
82. Eminem: $31 million
82. Neymar: $31 million
82. Britney Spears: $31 million
86. Carmelo Anthony: $30.5 million
87. Johnny Depp: $30 million
88. Maria Sharapova: $29.5 million
89. Leonardo Dicaprio: $29 million
89. Sean Hannity: $29 million
89. Carson Palmer: $29 million
89. Jim Parsons: $29 million
89. James Rodriguez: $29 million
89. Channing Tatum: $29 million
95. Jennifer Lopez: $28.5 million
95. Miranda Lambert: $28.5 million
95. Sofia Vergara: $28.5 million
95. Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting: $28.5 million
95. Blake Shelton: $28.5 million
95. Kevin Hart: $28.5 million
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