Calvin Harris & Avicii Make Forbes ‘World’s Most Powerful Celebrities’ List

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Once again Forbes has released their high profile list of its 100 Celebrities. This time around, Forbes have analysed the influence and earnings of celebrities across all walks of sport, film, TV and music.

This year’s list see’s EDM heavyweights Calvin Harris come in at #21 and Avicii at #47 – a big milestone for the biggest growing genre in music today.

To get some sort of perspective on the situation, you need to take a quick look at some of the other names on the list. Calvin Harris sits one spot above The Rock and one below rapper Kanye West while Avicii is one spot below football superstar Lionel Messi. Beyonce Knowles tops the list, with LeBron James and Dr. Dre ranked right behind her.

Dorothy Pomerantz of Forbes wrote a thorough explanation of how the list was put together. Take a look below.

“To create the Celebrity 100, we start by compiling earnings estimates for more than 200 celebrities to create a pool of top earners. To come up with our earnings estimates, we talk to agents, lawyers, producers and other in-the-know folks about entertainment-related earnings for each celebrity. That can include things like upfront pay for movies, syndication payments for old TV shows, tournament winnings and endorsements.

We don’t deduct for taxes, agent fees or the other costs of being a celebrity. Then we use Factiva to count how many times each celebrity was mentioned in print, on TV and on the radio between June 1, 2013, and June 1, 2014, the time frame for this year’s list.

This year, we also added an impact ranking (similar to the ones used in our lists of The World’s Most Powerful Women and World’s Most Powerful People) for each celebrity. The number is the degree of impact each celebrity has had on the entertainment industry and our culture overall during the prior year, based on the evaluation of the list editors, reporters and their sources for the list.”

There is no doubt dance music is truly taking over, with acts like Skrillex and deadmau5 becoming household names, don’t be surprised if you see even more producers on next year’s list.

Forbes Celebrity 100 List

1. Beyonce
2. LeBron James
3. Dr. Dre
4. Oprah Winfrey
5. Ellen DeGeneres
6. Jay Z
7. Floyd Mayweather Jr.
8. Rihanna
9. Katy Perry
10. Robert Downey Jr.
11. Steven Spielberg
12. Jennifer Lawrence
13. Bon Jovi
14. Bruno Mars
15. Kobe Bryant
16. Roger Federer
17. Miley Cyrus
18. Taylor Swift
19. Lady Gaga
20. Kanye West
21. Calvin Harris
22. Tiger Woods
23. Dwayne Johnson
24. Rafael Nadal
25. Bruce Springsteen
26. The Eagles
27. Justin Timberlake
28. One Direction
29. Paul McCartney
30. Cristiano Ronaldo
31. Sean “Diddy” Combs
31 Ryan Seacrest
33. Justin Bieber
33. Kevin Durant
33. Jennifer Lopez
36. Sandra Bullock
37. James Patterson
38. Pharrell Williams
39. Glenn Beck
39. Peyton Manning
41. Mark Burnett
42. Simon Cowell
43. Novak Djokovic
44. Phil Mickelson
45. Jimmy Fallon
45. Lionel Messi
47. Avicii 24
48. Bradley Cooper
48. Peter Jackson
50. Michael Bay
51. Toby Keith
52. Leonardo DiCaprio
52. Matthew McConaughey
54. Sofia Vergara
55. Dwyane Wade
56. Gisele Bundchen
56. Tyler Perry
58. Gordon Ramsay
59. Rush Limbaugh
60. Jon Stewart
60. Mark Wahlberg
62. Howard Stern
63. Hugh Jackman
63. Ashton Kutcher
63. Maria Sharapova
66. Vin Diesel
67. Ben Affleck
68. Joss Whedon
69. Serena Williams
70. Kenny Chesney
71. J.J. Abrams
72. Neil Patrick Harris
73. Angelina Jolie
74. Kevin Spacey
75. Will Smith
76. Scarlett Johansson
77. Jennifer Aniston
78. Dan Brown
79. John Green
80. Kim Kardashian
81. Amy Adams
82. Stephen King
83. Dr. Phil McGraw
84. J.K. Rowling
85. Li Na
86. Sean Hannity
86. Seth MacFarlane
88. Bryan Cranston
89. Jon Hamm
89. Gwyneth Paltrow
91. Kate Moss
92. Meryl Streep
93. Kerry Washington
94. Kate Upton
95. Veronica Roth
96. Zooey Deschanel
97 .Cameron Diaz
97. Lena Dunham
99. Kaley Cuoco
100. Natalie Portman

Source: Forbes

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