So I picked up Forbes magazine today because I knew they were having something about the top earning people in entertainment. These lists really aren’t a surprise anymore; they added a top earning tweens list. Result (obviously) is that Miley Cyrus is on top of that list with an income of $25 million (together with Daniel Radcliffe but it’s well known we limit ourselves to the female side here).

She’s followed by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen with $15 million, Ashley Tisdale with $5.5 million, Emma Watson with $5.5 million, Hilary Duff with $5 million and Vanessa Hudgens with $3.2 million. On a side note (well not that much of a side note) Keira Knightley made the top earning actresses list with $32 million.

More than I’ve ever made in my life but I’m actually surprised there’s that much of a difference between them, I knew Miley was the biggest young star out there I just didn’t realize the financial gap was that big. She managed to earn more money in a year at fifteen that most people will earn in their entire lives (though all of the ones listed have made more than most people do in a lifetime).

At the end of the issue they also added a thing I didn’t really get: Good Girls, Bad Girls; Who makes more, the squeaky clean or the jailbird queen? On the good side they have Miley Cyrus, Hilary Duff and Lauren Conrad. While on the bad side they have Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. Seems a bit pointless to me really, in the end the good side wins of course.

I keep wondering where Forbes gets these numbers from though, it’s not like they can ring up the celebrity accountants and ask for the numbers. So they’re probably very well researched estimates.

Forbes Magazine released its “The 20 Top-Earning Young Superstars” this week, which basically focuses on the stars under 25 and look at how much they make. The top earners are pro-athletes so they’re of no real interest to us. In our field of interest the list pretty much starts at number five with the Olsen Twins earning $17 million each, though they didn’t actually make any money of their career in movies but of their production and clothing company.

Hilary Duff is ranked 7th with an income of $12 million, Keira Knightley is 10th with $9 million, Scarlett Johansson is 12th with $5 million, Mischa Barton is 13th with $4.5 million, Dakota Fanning is 14th with $4 million, Emma Watson is 15th with $4 million, Miley Cyrus is 17th with $3.5 million, Lindsay Lohan is 18th with $3.5 million and Mandy Moore is 19th with $3.5 million.

I just wonder, how does Forbes know what they make? I am in no position to claim that they’re wrong but income is just something that people don’t really like to talk about. Endorsement deals are also something companies tend to be vague about.

Especially looking at the example of Miley Cyrus I think she actually make considerably more than $3.5 million. In her case I just think it’s hard to keep track of everything she makes money on, seeing she makes a cut of all Hannah Montana merchandise and there’s a lot of that stuff out there. I also think she makes a fair some of money of her fan site mileyworld.com, despite the negative press. They do mention her concert tour but it seems like they’re pushing that back to next year. Which is probably explained by the timing, if they don’t count November until next year then the number is probably quite realistic. For next year the number should go up quite a bit.

Lindsay Lohan proves that even with going to rehab twice, getting DUI’s and pretty much just messing up you can still make $3.5 million a year. Though that number might have been considerably higher if she had been in successful movies.

I would really like to know where they get their numbers though.

The thing with actresses starting at a young age is that you see them growing up on screen. You can of course never predict what they’ll be like in the future, sometimes they turn out to be different than you ever imagined.

There are two possible ways we can see people growing up on screen, there are the actresses that start out on TV and there are the ones that start in movies. With movies you see them growing up in steps, you see them once in a while. With TV you can literally see them growing up, they can even change over the course of a TV season.

One of the most famous examples probably are the Olsen twins, you could literally see Mary-Kate and Ashley start out as babies on Full House. After that they kept exploiting their cute twin factor in straight to DVD movies from their own production company Dual Star. But what everyone knew would happen really did happen; their cuteness factor wore off and now we just see two close to being anorexic fashion disasters in the tabloids. They’re now trying to get into acting again but solo; the twin thing isn’t that useful for adult actors.
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