Oprah Winfrey regains No. 1 spot on Forbes 2013 list of The Most Powerful Celebrities. Despite a few business stumbles and a drop of $88 million in earnings from last year, Forbes reports, she still made the top slot. Mostly females dominated the top ten spots including Lady Gaga in second, Beyoncé in fourth, Madonna in fifth, Taylor Swift in sixth and Ellen DeGeneres rounding out the tenth spot. Steven Spielberg, Bon Jovi, Roger Federer and Justin Bieber were amongst the top ten.
According to Forbes, the former daytime talk show host made an estimated $77 million between June 2012 and June 2013; last year she made $165 million. Even though Oprah wasn't the highest earner on the list, Madonna was the highest earner for the year with $125 million, Oprah's fame, mentions in the press and social networking power is what helped push her to the top.
She took a decline in earnings this year mainly due to her cable network, OWN. It has been quite a struggle for the talk show host, losing an estimated $330 million for parent company Discovery from 2008 to 2012, but is expected to pick up a profit at the end of this year. She also rakes in money from her other ventures including O Magazine, a network on SiriusXM radio and from her two protégés Rachel Ray and Dr. Phil. She is now reworking the show's she puts on OWN. A major setback for the network was the Rosie O'Donnell talk show. Now she is adding scripted shows with Tyler Perry (who placed at No. 22 on the list) and grabbing must-see interviews like the one she did with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.
In the past two years, the Queen of Talk Shows placed at No. 2. Last year, Jennifer Lopez was the top celebrity but this year she came in at No. 12. Other celebrities to make this list are Katy Perry, Tiger Woods, Miranda Kerr, Zooey Deschanel, Kim Kardashian and "Fifty Shades of Grey" author E.L. James.
