American business mag Forbes has revealed this year’s highest-paid celebrity earners, ten flush Hollywood types who most definitely have not had to tighten their belts this recession.
Top of the heap is TV Deity Oprah who, though she quit her daytime talk show last year, as the head of eponymous cable channel OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), raked in some $165 million between May 2011 and 2012.
Hot on Oprah’s heels is Transformers tyrant Michael Bay, squirreling away $160 million for a rainy day thanks to the major points he had on $1.1 billion-earner Dark of the Moon.
Steven Spielberg’s $130 million earnings see him in third place, thanks not only to 2011 double-hitters War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, but also to Dreamworks’ telly prods like Smash and Terra Nova.
Stuffing his bank account with 115 million fresh dollar bills, producing juggernaut Jerry Bruckheimer comes fourth, while rap mogul Dr Dre’s $110 million fortune sees him at fifth.
Rounding of the top ten, producer/director/writer/actor Tyler Perry is in sixth place with $105 million, shock jock Howard Stern comes seventh with $95 million, prolific author James Patterson is eighth with $94, while in joint ninth and tenth place, Star Wars’ monster George Lucas and TV creep Simon Cowell registered fortunes of $90 million a piece.
Of the top twenty earners only two are women, with Britney Spears squeezing in the list at number 20.
