Serena tops Forbes list of highest paid female athletes

Serena Williams was the highest paid female athlete for a third consecutive year in 2018, according to an annual list published by Forbes on Tuesday that was dominated by tennis players.

Williams, who returned to competition in March after giving birth last September, earned $62,000 in winnings over the past year but received $18.1 million from an endorsement portfolio unmatched among women in sports, Forbes said.

Williams, who will try to equal Margaret Court's record of 24 grand slam titles when she competes at the August 27-September 9 US Open in New York, earned twice as much off the court as any other female athlete, according to Forbes.


Dane Caroline Wozniacki, who captured her maiden grand slam title at this year's Australian Open, was second on the list with combined earnings of ($13 million), while reigning U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens ($11.2 million) was third.

Spaniard Garbine Muguruza ($11 million) and Russian Maria Sharapova ($10.5 million) rounded out the top five.

Indian badminton player P.V. Sindhu ($8.5 million) and retired race car driver Danica Patrick ($7.5 million) were the only non-tennis players to crack the top 10, filling up the seventh and ninth spots, respectively.

In June, Forbes issued a ranking of the world's 100 highest-paid athletes and it did not feature a woman.

Serena Williams, who was the only woman on the list the previous year, dropped out of the chart while taking time off to have a baby.

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Mark Wahlberg named world's highest-paid actor in 2017

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mark Wahlberg soared to the top of the world's highest paid actors on an annual Forbes magazine list that highlighted a huge disparity between male and female Hollywood stars.

Wahlberg, 46, earned an estimated $68 million in 2017 thanks to his pay days for movies "Daddy's Home 2" and "Transformers: The Last Knight", according to the Forbes ranking released on Tuesday.

The rapper-turned-actor knocked 2016 leader Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson into second place, with estimated 2017 earnings of $65 million.

Forbes estimates earnings, before taxes and management fees, from movies, TV and commercial endorsements.

The Forbes list again highlighted Hollywood's gender pay gap. Last week, the magazine named "La La Land" Oscar winner Emma Stone as the world's highest paid actress with an estimated 2017 take of $26 million.

Forbes said the 10 highest-paid leading men earned a combined $488.5 million before tax in its June 2016-June 2017 scoring period, nearly three times more than the $172.5 million earned by the top 10 scoring women.

Forbes attributed the disparity to the prevalence of superhero and action blockbusters that earn big at the box office for Hollywood studios but tend to have fewer leading roles for women.

"Pirates of the Caribbean" star Johnny Depp, who for years has been among the top five paid actors, did not make the top 20 this year, Forbes said. Depp is currently embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with his former business managers who have detailed what they describe as his lavish spending habits.

Last December, before the May 2017 release of "Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Men Tell No Tales," Forbes named Depp the most overpaid actor for a second straight year as films such as "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and "Mortdecai" did not fare well.

Three of Bollywood's biggest stars - Shah Rukh Khan ($38 million), Salman Khan ($37 million) and Akshay Kumar ($35.5 million) - took the 8th, 9th and 10th places on the Forbes list, respectively.

The full list can be seen at: here#134f57793f92

Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Paul Simao

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Sean Combs ousts Taylor Swift as highest-paid global entertainer

LOS ANGELES - Rapper and music producer Sean "Diddy" Combs was named the world's highest-paid entertainer on Monday, ousting pop singer Taylor Swift who fell to 49th place on the Forbes annual list.

Beyonce moved into the second spot with $105 million, courtesy of her best-selling "Lemonade" album and world tour, while British author J.K. Rowling ($95 million) moved back into the top three thanks largely to her "Harry Potter" spinoff movie franchise "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

Combs, 47, earned an estimated $130 million in the 12 months ended June 1, 2017, Forbes said. It attributed the big payout to his Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour, earnings from his Sean John clothing line, and his partnership with Ciroc vodka.

Last year, Combs came in 22nd on the list in a year when Swift bested all-comers with $170 million after her best-selling "1989" album and world tour.

This year, the 27-year-old country singer-turned-pop star, with no new album or tour, saw her paycheck dip to $44 million, Forbes estimated.

Newcomers in 2017 include model Kylie Jenner, the 19-year-old half-sister of reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who earned $41 million, and U.S. radio and television personality Steve Harvey with $42.5 million

Forbes compiles the list estimating pre-tax earnings, before deducting fees for managers, based on data from Nielsen, touring trade publication Pollstar, movie database IMDB.com, and interviews with industry experts and celebrities themselves.

The world's top 100 celebrities earned a cumulative $5.1 billion - about the same as last year, Forbes said.

The full list can be seen on www.forbes.com/celebrities

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Taylor Swift tops Forbes' 2016 list of highest paid women in music

With earnings of $170 million, pop singer Taylor Swift was 2016's highest-paid woman in music, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.

Swift, 26, smashed the Rolling Stones' North American touring record, pulling in a total of more than $200 million on the North American portion of her "1989" world tour. Last year, the "Bad Blood" singer came in second to Katy Perry with an estimated $80 million.

Swift was honored with the first-ever "Taylor Swift Award" at the BMI Pop Awards in May, quipping that she "would be kind of bummed" if the award had gone to someone else.

British "Hello" singer Adele, 28, ranked second on Forbes' list with $80.5 million in earnings, her highest total yet. Adele, whose album "25" swiftly became the biggest seller of 2015, enjoyed continued success with album sales this year and grossed millions per night for her arena shows.

Madonna, who was named the highest-paid woman in music in 2013, ranked third this year. Her recent "Rebel Heart" tour grossed $170 million, bringing her career total on the road to $1.4 billion pretax, according to the magazine.

In the past 12 months, Madonna, 58, earned a total of $76.5 million. That was slightly more than Barbados-born Rihanna, who earned $75 million and also received a lifetime achievement award at the MTV Video Music Awards on Aug. 28.

"Lemonade" artist Beyonce, who was 2014's top earner, ranked fifth at $54 million.

Collectively, the 10 women on Forbes' list earned more than $600 million this year.

Forbes compiled the list after estimating pretax income for the 12 months from June 2015 to 2016 based on interviews with managers, agents, lawyers and some of the stars. It also looked at data from the Pollstar, the Recording Industry Association of America and tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan.

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