--- title: Celebrity Age Gap: Top-Paid Women Stars Much Younger Than Top-Paid Men description: On average, the women on the Forbes List of 100 Top-Paid Celebrities are almost 10 years younger than the men canonical: https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-29T19:21:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:57:08.970Z og:title: Celebrity Age Gap: Top-Paid Women Stars Much Younger Than Top-Paid Men og:description: On average, the women on the Forbes List of 100 Top-Paid Celebrities are almost 10 years younger than the men og:url: https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb88f794e9be924b9/698858eacd1bba73406fc0ce/gettyimages-478374970.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2434 og:image:height: 1369 og:image:alt: Celebrity Sightings In New York City - June 24, 2015 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Celebrity Age Gap: Top-Paid Women Stars Much Younger Than Top-Paid Men twitter:description: On average, the women on the Forbes List of 100 Top-Paid Celebrities are almost 10 years younger than the men twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb88f794e9be924b9/698858eacd1bba73406fc0ce/gettyimages-478374970.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Age Gap is the New Wage Gap: Just Ask Top-Paid Female Celebrities > Sponsored content. 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(Raymond Hall--GC Images) Raymond Hall—GC Images  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Jun 29, 2015 7:21 PM UTC Aging rockers, has-been radio personalities, and ex-action stars get paid more than A-list actresses. That’s one major takeaway from [Forbes’ annual list](http://www.forbes.com/celebrities/list/#tab:youngest) of the 100 top-paid celebrities this year. Two things were apparent from this year’s list: women make up only 16% of the top-paid celebrities in the world, and the ones who do make the list are significantly younger than the men. The average age for men on the list was 42– for women, it was 36\. If you take out Judge Judy, who at 72 is an outlier by about 15 years, that average drops to just over 33. In other words: the pay gap is alive and well, even among the richest celebrities, and while male stars are adept at turning youthful success into a lifetime of fame, female celebrity is far more delicate. The average age for men on the 2015 Forbes list does not include the collected ages of The Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac, all ’70s era bands who made the list (Fleetwood Mac includes two women)– if the ages of these men had been included, the average age for men on the list would have been significantly higher. Older guys like Jimmy Buffett (68) Jackie Chan (61) and Howard Stern (61) make the list, but Meryl Streep (66) and Madonna (56) don’t. The 16 women on the list earned a combined $409 million, while the combined male earnings[ topped](http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2015/06/29/why-there-are-so-few-women-on-the-global-celebrity-100-list/) $4.3 billion. More importantly, many of the women on the list tend to be young and beautiful, while older stars are simply not making the cut. Of the 16 women on the list, only a quarter are over the age of 35 (Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Lopez, Ellen Degeneres and Judge Judy.) The other twelve are much younger, including Jennifer Lawrence (24), Taylor Swift (25) and Lady Gaga (29). Almost half of the 16 women on the list are under 30. To be clear–it’s not Forbes’s fault there are so few women on their list, they’re just the messenger here. This year they expanded their annual list of top-paid celebrities to include international icons, and restricted it to on-camera talent (which might be why Shonda Rhimes and Oprah aren’t on it). They assembled the list by measuring earnings from June 1, 2014 to June 1, 2015, then subtracted management fees and taxes. That sounds like a fair methodology for determining which celebrities are making the most money. And yet, women are notably absent. Lots of women who would ordinarily be on the list seem to be taking a little break this year. As Forbes’s Natalie Robehmed explains, in [her post about why there are so few women on the list](http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2015/06/29/why-there-are-so-few-women-on-the-global-celebrity-100-list/): --- > “” --- Of course, there’s also the fact that there’s a pay gap between men and women in most professions, and Hollywood isn’t immune. As Robehmed points out, it’s no coincidence that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams only saw 7% of the profits for _American Hustle,_ while the male actors got 9%. Women are also less likely to be the main character, which means smaller paychecks, and in other countries the gap is even worse– in [Bollywood,](http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2015/06/29/why-there-are-so-few-women-on-the-global-celebrity-100-list/) actresses make about a sixth of what their male co-stars make. And yet it’s impossible to ignore the age trend at work here. Among the richest celebrities, all the women young, beautiful, and at the top of their game right now– Beyonce, Katy Perry, and Sofia Vergara are all in the prime of their careers. Not so with the richest male celebrities– Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t been on primetime TV in years, and Adam Sandler hit his stride in the early 2000s. In other words: when it comes to top-paid celebrities, the age gap might be just as important as the wage gap. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/"},"headline":"Age Gap is the New Wage Gap: Just Ask Top-Paid Female Celebrities","datePublished":"2015-06-29T19:21:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:57:08.970Z","description":"On average, the women on the Forbes List of 100 Top-Paid Celebrities are almost 10 years younger than the men","url":"https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/","keywords":["Living","women","gender","Jennifer Lawrence","Katy Perry","Beyonce","Taylor Swift","Forbes","celebrity","Age","elton john"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb88f794e9be924b9/698858eacd1bba73406fc0ce/gettyimages-478374970.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb88f794e9be924b9/698858eacd1bba73406fc0ce/gettyimages-478374970.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Celebrity Sightings In New York City - June 24, 2015","caption":"Celebrity Sightings In New York City - June 24, 2015","creditText":"Raymond Hall—GC Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3939908/age-gap-is-the-new-wage-gap-top-paid-women-celebrities-are-much-younger-than-top-paid-men/","name":"Age Gap is the New Wage Gap: Just Ask Top-Paid Female Celebrities"}}]}] ```