With $130 million in earnings, Forbes announced that Diddy is the highest paid musician of 2017. Beyonce took in $105 million to come second, thanks to her Queen Bey’s Formation Tour, which earned about $250 million. Drake came in third place with $94 million, mostly due to his Boy Meets World Tour, followed by The Weeknd with $92 million and band Coldplay with $88 million.
Missing from the top 10 list is Jay Z and Taylor Swift.
The yearly Forbes list calculates pretax income from June 1, 2016 through June 1, 2017, and the data is collected from Nielsen Music, Pollstar, the RIAA and industry insiders.
Diddy rake in his riches from mainly from the sale of one-third of his Sean John clothing line for about $70 million. He also took in money from his Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour and various business ventures with Ciroc vodka, DeLeon tequila, and Aquahydrate.
Iconic rock band Guns N’ Roses enjoyed a highly successful comeback tour that helped them amass $84 million. That was good enough to earn them a sixth-place spot on the list, which is higher than Justin Bieber, who came in seventh with $83.5 million.
Touring was a major source of revenue for almost every musician on the top 25 list except for Jimmy Buffet, who came in 15th with $50 million, mostly due to his Margaritaville brand, which includes hotels and restaurants.
Forbes top 10 lists:
- Diddy ($130 M)
- Beyoncé ($105 M)
- Drake ($94 M)
- The Weeknd ($92 M)
- Coldplay ($88 M)
- Guns N’ Roses ($84 M)
- Justin Bieber ($83.5 M)
- Bruce Springsteen ($75 M)
- Adele ($69 M)
- Metallica ($66.5 M)
