Katy Perry named highest-earner by Forbes, Swift remains in second place

Article written by Sid Solomon

Katy Perry has been named the highest earning female musician for 2015 by Forbes.

She has tripled her earnings from last year making $135 million from June 2014 to June 2015.

In particular, her Prismatic world tour brought in almost $2 million per city with her tour taking her to 126 cities.

As is standard practice with pop stars these days, she added money made from sponsorships to her tour earnings. Her deals are with Claire’s and Coty as well as Covergirl.

Perry was ranked fifth last year where Forbes reported her total earnings to stand at $40 million.

As for Taylor Swift, she also had a busy year with her 1989 tour and was ranked second on the list for the second year in a row. Forbes calculated her earnings to be at $80 million this year.

Both Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac came in third, thanks to making $59.5 million on the band’s It’s On With The Show tour.

Lady Gaga came in at fourth place with earnings coming from tour dates as well as deals from Versace and Mac cosmetics. Beyonce who was last year’s top earner dropped to fifth place this year. They earned $59 and $54.5 million respectively.

Last year, it was Pink and Rihanna who took the third and fourth spots by earning $52 and $48 million respectively.

While tour earnings accounted for most of the top five female artists with the only exception being Swift whose album 1989 was a massive commercial success.

Madonna was the highest earning female musician of 2013.