Rihanna Is Crowned More ‘Powerful’ Than Beyonce & Taylor Swift On Forbes List
All hail the true queen – Rihanna! Forbes shared its list of ‘The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’ and put Rihanna ahead of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, and more.
Rihanna is many things. She’s an internationally acclaimed singer with more Platinum certifications than one can count. She’s a beauty mogul and a fashion kingpin, sitting atop a billion-dollar empire. She’s about to be a Super Bowl Halftime show headliner. She’s a proud mother, caring for her and ASAP Rocky’s child. Now, she’s one of the most powerful women in the world, according to Forbes magazine. The publication released its list for “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” on Wednesday (Dec. 7), and Rihanna, 34, came in at No. 73, behind Laura Cha, the first female chair of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and ahead of Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark.
On top of this, Rihanna is more powerful than her fellow pop stars, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Taylor, 32, and Beyoncé, 41, are listed at No. 79 and No. 80, respectively. They’re sandwiched between Jenny Lee, “one of the most respected VC investors in China,” and Guler Sabanci, the first woman to run Sabanci Holding, one of Turkey’s largest international conglomerates.
How did Forbes come up with these rankings? “The list was determined by four main metrics: money, media, impact, and spheres of influence,” the publication says. “For political leaders, we weighed gross domestic products and populations; for corporate leaders, revenues and employee counts; and media mentions and reach of all. The result is a collection of women who are fighting the status quo.”
![Rihanna takes her baby to dinner with her mother at Giorgio Baldi Italian Restaurant in Santa Monica, CA. 05 Apr 2023 Pictured: Rihanna. Photo credit: MEGA TheMegaAgency.com +1 888 505 6342 (Mega Agency TagID: MEGA966195_015.jpg) [Photo via Mega Agency]](https://preprod.hollywoodlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/rihanna-asap-rocky-son-family-dinner-01.jpg?quality=100&w=167)
While Rihanna was deemed more “powerful” than Taylor, it was Swift who was listed under “The Highlights” section. “Taylor Swift broke records and Ticketmaster’s website this year,” wrote Forbes. “After releasing her 10th studio album in October [Midnights], she became the first artist in history to claim the top ten spots on the Billboard Hot 100 song list. And in November, demand for tickets to her 2023 Eras Tour overwhelmed Ticketmaster, prompting members of Congress to question the company’s hold on concert sales.”
Taylor was spotlighted alongside Thasunda Brown Duckett, the president and CEO of TIAA ad one of just two Black female CEOs “leading one of America’s largest 500 companies”; Falguni Nayar, India’s richest self-made woman; and Xiomara Castro, the first female president of Honduras. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president (the European Union’s executive branch), is listed as No. 1.
Some other familiar faces made the list. United States Vice President Kamala Harris is at No. 3, MacKenzie Scott (investor and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) is at No. 11, Oprah Winfrey is No. 24, Reese Witherspoon is No. 86, Shonda Rhimes is No. 93, and Dolly Parton nearly finished out the list at No. 96.