Hollywood’s A-listers may appear to have it all, but it appears that only a select few have actually achieved billionaire status.
Only eight celebrities are listed in the new Forbes report as billionaires, and if you want to know what their names are, keep scrolling down…
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are ready to become the new celebrity power couple, and all the wealthiest stars, from Rihanna to Kim Kardashian, are watching them intently
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Kim Kardashian
Kim was a socialite and celebrity stylist at the start of her career, but a sex tape she recorded with the rapper Ray J ‘helped’ catapult her and her family to fame as reality TV stars.
She and her relatives have used the money and attention they’ve received to become a global powerhouse in their industry.
Forbes estimates that since 2012, she has made $10 million year from the program and endorsements.
She has several successful ventures under her belt, including KKW Beauty, KKW Fragrance, Skims, Kimojis (custom emojis), and a VR game based on her life.
She has made a lot of money from endorsement deals and advertisements in the past.
Kim has amassed a $1 billion fortune thanks to the success of her shapewear brand, Skims, during the past five years.
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Kanye West
Forbes magazine announced Kanye West as a billionaire in April of 2020.
West has a huge deal with Gap that includes him producing and designing clothing for the company, in addition to a multiyear partnership with Adidas for his massively successful Yeezy range.
West has $17 million in cash, $35 million in stocks, $81 million in ‘buildings and upgrades,’ and $21 million in land, according to assertions supplied by his team for the 2020 report.
Kanye also owns a small stake in his ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims, according to The Blast.
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Rihanna
Rihanna, a Barbadian native, was discovered in 2003 by American record producer Evan Rogers, who forwarded a demo of her work to Def Jam Recordings.
The tape made its way to Def Jam head Jay-Z, who fell in love with Rihanna after seeing her perform and urged her to come in.
In August of 2021, Rihanna became the first female musician and the second female entertainment (after Oprah Winfrey) in the world to reach the billionaire status.
Forbes stated that the Umbrella singer has earned $1.4 billion over the course of her decade-long career, with the vast majority of that sum coming from her fashion labels and her skincare and cosmetics company Fenty Beauty.
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Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, whose meteoric rise to wealth has stunned onlookers, are widely expected to be the next billionaire “power couple” in Hollywood.
His role as the darkly comic superhero Deadpool propelled him to the top of the Hollywood salary scale.
There are also the couple’s crazy business deals, like when he paid £2 million for a Welsh football team that didn’t play in the top league.
Reynolds’s investment in Mint Mobile, a cheap phone company, paid off this month when T-Mobile announced it would buy the company for more than £1 billion. Reynolds made £245 million from the deal.
Since the couple’s net worth was £147 million before the investment, they had practically doubled it overnight.
When the artisanal spirits brand Aviation American Gin, of which he was the public face, was acquired by the British drinks giant Diageo in 2020 for an initial payment of £272 million and potentially worth £495 million, he gained millions.
It is still thought that Reynolds owns between 20% and 25% of the corporation and that he has an active role in its operations.
The actress also acts as a “brand ambassador” for high-end companies including Chanel, L’Oréal, and Stella McCartney.
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Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey rose from poverty to become one of the world’s wealthiest women.
From 2004 to 2006, Oprah was the sole black billionaire on Forbes’ list of The World’s Billionaires, and she became the first black woman to reach that status in 2003.
TIME Magazine said: ‘Few people would have bet on Oprah Winfrey’s swift rise to host the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of ample bulk.’
She joined The Forbes 400 list in 1995 with a net worth of $340 million (£243m) and that figure has multiplied exponentially.
She has a variety of properties, franchises, and even a private jet.
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Jay-Z
Now more than ever, Jay-Z has established himself as the wealthiest rapper in the world.
On Friday, Forbes revised its previous estimate of the music mogul’s net worth, increasing it to an astounding $2.5 billion.
The sale of his streaming service Tidal and his Armand de Brignac champagne to LVMH, in addition to his Roc Nation empire, contributed significantly to the musician’s net worth.
The mogul amassed his fortune through a number of means, including the success of his businesses, the sales of his albums, his astute investments, and the appreciation of his property portfolio.
Beyoncé, his 41-year-old wife, is worth an astounding $426 million as of 2022, increasing the family’s wealth even more.
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Steven Spielberg
Director Steven Spielberg has won three Oscars for his work, and his films have become classics in their own right.
According to Bloomberg, he amassed nearly $2.5 billion in fees and profit share from film and television partnerships, the majority of which came from project fees.
Forbes estimates that he has made over $25 billion in ticket sales from his movies.
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Tyler Perry
According to Forbes’s 2020 estimates, media mogul Tyler Perry has just become a billionaire.
Perry, 53, claims he was “broke as hell” and homeless when he first started out, and he did struggle as a dramatist and an actor before his career took off and he became the first African American to operate his own studio.
Perry has invested in multiple assets, including his 330-acre studio property, which he says is crucial to his financial success.
“Ownership alters everything,” he told Forbes.
‘You got to understand, I had no mentors,’ Perry told Forbes. ‘My father doesn’t know anything about business, and my uncles and mother, they know nothing about this. I didn’t go to business school. Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned in progress.’
A billionaire who may soon be added to The Forbes 400, Perry is said to have made “more than $1.4 billion in pretax income since 2005” by the journal.
The 62-year-old filmmaker and producer has an estimated net worth of $1.97 billion (US$1.5 billion), thanks to his work on the massively successful Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
According to Variety Australia, this has propelled him to the 1,929th position on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people.
The selling of Jackson’s Wellington-based WETA studios for $1.28billion in 2021 was a major factor in the Oscar winner’s rise to billionaire status.
