Music

Jennifer Lopez is #1 on Forbes' Celebrity 100 in Current Year, Not Old Year

by Dave Hodgson

Since 1999, Forbes Magazine, your go-to source for business information and monocle reviews, has released their annual Celebrity 100 list, which ranks the most powerful celebrities of the year. And taking the top spot for 2012, beating out Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Katy Perry and last year’s #1 Lady Gaga, was… Jennifer Lopez? Last time I checked, this isn’t 2001. Can you imagine if I actually had to check which year it was? How would I even go about doing that?

Maybe I’m being too harsh. In fact, I almost certainly am, but you gotta have an angle, right? Why, in the last twelve months, Lopez reeled in $52 million, tentpoled the ratings for American Idol, created a top-selling perfume, and starred in a surprisingly-jerkable razor commercial. So she probably deserved it, but was it worth earning the ire of young guns like Taylor Swift? She has a hillbilly uncle named Enos who takes care of problems like this.

Here are the rest of the musicians who rounded out the top 100. Once again, Engelbert Humperdinck gets snubbed.

#3 – Justin Bieber
#4 – Rihanna
#5 – Lady Gaga
#6 – Britney Spears
#8 – Katy Perry
#11 – Taylor Swift
#16 – Beyonce Knowles
#17 – Elton John
#21 – Paul McCartney
#24 – Adele
#25 – Bon Jovi
#26 – Dr. Dre
#38 – Jay-Z
#42 – Sean “Diddy” Combs
#45 – Kanye West
#49 – Toby Keith
#53 – Kenny Chesney
#68 – Brad Paisley
#69 – Lil Wayne
#84 – Tiesto
#92 – Skrillex