The World's Celebrity Billionaires 2025

Forbes

01-04-2025

Fame and fortune often come hand in hand. But although many celebrities are wealthy, it's rare for their net worths to stretch all the way to ten figures. Forbes estimates that less than two dozen people on the planet have accomplished that feat.
Most obtained their celebrity billionaire status in the last decade. The economics of their industries have been shifting: Sports has seen massive spikes in salaries and the values of endorsement deals, and athletes are building companies now more than ever, helping stars like NBA great LeBron James add a third comma to their fortunes. In pop music, it's becoming more common to leverage fame to garner attention for other business ventures. Rihanna and Jay-Z, for example, became billionaires through the brands they started in fashion, beauty and liquor, rather than their songs.
Naturally, defining 'celebrity' isn't always easy. For this World's Billionaires list, Forbes chose to feature people who became famous first, then massively rich. That definition skews heavily in favor of entertainers and athletes. It doesn't include those who are famous for being wealthy or for the success of their businesses, like Donald Trump and Mark Cuban.
This year we identified 18 celebrity billionaires, worth a collective $39 billion—up from 14 and $31 billion in 2024. The new additions to Forbes' list of celebrities are Jerry Seinfeld, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vincent McMahon and Bruce Springsteen.
The comedian is best known for starring in the '90s hit show Seinfeld, and indeed, that's where most of his fortune originates: He and Larry David each rake in 15% of all of its profits. But Seinfeld is much richer than his co-creator, in part because of David's 2007 divorce. Seinfeld continues to make money through his comedy tours and TV specials, including '23 Hours to Kill,' for which Netflix recently paid him $20 million.
The former California governor is best known for his approximately 50-film catalog, which encompasses iconic roles like the 'Terminator,' and took home roughly $500 million for the lot of them. But he built another fortune through venture capital (including investing in Google's Series A funding round), commercial real estate, private equity and other investments.
The television writer and producer's company Wolf Entertainment is the stuff of legends, creating nearly ubiquitous franchises like Law & Order and FBI. Forbes estimates that Wolf, who's been in the biz for 30 years, makes up to $350,000 an episode for his top shows. He's also collected yachts, multiple homes and an extensive art collection.
The 'Born to Run' singer's biggest payday came in 2021, when he sold his music catalog to Sony for some $500 million. But Springsteen also had a lucrative run on Broadway with an eponymous show and has made hundreds of millions from touring and album sales. The Boss has declined to comment to Forbes about his wealth but claimed to The Telegraph last year that he's not a billionaire because he 'spent too much money on superfluous things.'
The first person to become a billionaire while an active NBA player has made more than $500 million (pre-tax) from salaries over his 22 seasons on the court. He's earned hundreds of millions more in his spare time, through endorsement deals with the likes of Nike and PepsiCo, and through his own business ventures, including production company SpringHill. James is also a sports owner, with stakes in soccer club Liverpool, the Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Rihanna came into the limelight with pop hits like 'Pon de Replay' (2005) and 'Umbrella' (2007), continued to release hit music through her last record Anti (2016) and is currently teasing another album nearly a decade later. But it's her lingerie company Savage X Fenty—which raised $125 million in a 2022 funding round—and cosmetics business Fenty Beauty that made her a billionaire.
Woods' prolific golf career made him the world's highest-paid athlete for the decade through 2011, when he made $75 million that year alone, per Forbes estimates. The majority of that came from endorsements. He's also invested in luxury real estate, a high-end mini-golf chain and a golf-course design company.
Perry rose to fame in the theater, playing his renowned 'Madea' character—a comedic Black matriarch—on stages across the U.S. He took Madea to film and TV and hit it big. Today, Perry's two most valuable assets are his content library and Tyler Perry Studios, the film production company behind movies like 2022's A Madea Homecoming and 2024's The Six Triple Eight, co-starring fellow celebrity billionaire Oprah Winfrey (below).
The basketball Hall of Famer made his fortune through smart post-career investments, including buying minority stakes in the MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers (with Todd Boehly) and the NFL's Washington Commanders (with Justin Harris), and buying a majority of Iowa-based insurer EquiTrust in 2015. He grew the provider's assets from $16 billion to $26 billion during his first eight years of ownership.
The pop star became a billionaire in 2023 after taking home an estimated $190 million after taxes for just the first leg of her famous Eras Tour. The rest of her fortune is based on the value of her music catalog, plus music royalties and additional touring. She's stashed about $115 million in a swath of homes from Rhode Island to Tennessee.
Jackson's esteemed Lord of the Rings films made him $10 million apiece up front. But that's small change compared to what he earned when he sold part of his visual effects business, Weta Digital, to Unity Software in 2021. Weta gave Jackson $1.6 billion in cash and stock, from which he netted almost $1 billion.
Kardashian rose to prominence through reality TV but reached the billionaire stratosphere thanks to her shapewear line Skims, which a 2023 funding round valued at $4 billion. The star launched a skincare brand, SKKN By Kim, in 2022. She also owns a collection of houses, including a $40 million home outside L.A. that she previously shared with ex-husband Kanye West.
The hip-hop icon's portfolio is vast, encompassing assets like his champagne brand Armand de Brignac, his cognac label D'Usse, a stake in Uber that he bought in the app's early days, an impressive art collection (including pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat) and of course, his own music catalog. Jay-Z cashed in on his liquor brands in 2021 and 2023, selling stakes to LVMH and Bacardi for hundreds of millions each.
McMahon started off as a TV announcer for his father's wrestling company (then WWF, now WWE) in the 1970s. He purchased the business in 1982 and transformed it into a global powerhouse. McMahon merged WWE with UFC in 2023 to form TKO Group Holdings, over which he was briefly executive chairman before he stepped down last year amid sexual misconduct allegations (which he denies). He's been cashing out his stake in the company.
The media mogul came to fame as host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired from 1986 to 2011. By 2003, her hosting, acting and production earnings had made her a billionaire—the first-ever Black woman to reach that status. Winfrey continues to make money in entertainment, co-starring in the 2024 war drama The Six Triple Eight. But these days she's also parked much of her fortune in real estate in California and Hawaii, where she owns over 2,000 acres.
The NBA legend became the first athlete to rank on Forbes' list of the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. in 2023, eight years after becoming the first-ever billionaire athlete. Jordan made the bulk of his fortune through brand partnerships. Nike currently pays him over $100 million per year in royalties on his namesake Jordan brand.
Lucas created Star Wars, a franchise that is still going strong nearly 50 years after its first film debuted (many future movies are planned, including The Mandalorian & Grogu, expected in 2026). But he's not getting direct cuts of the new offerings: He sold the Star Wars IP back in 2012, when Disney bought his LucasFilm for $4 billion in cash and stock.
Spielberg got rich by making some of the most popular movies of the late 20th century, including Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. Having secured himself a fortune long ago—he first appeared on Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans in 1994—he shows no sign of slowing down, continuing to direct hits like 2021's West Side Story remake. In addition to film earnings, Spielberg has negotiated to get 2% of ticket sales at Universal theme parks in perpetuity.