Drink in that headline for a moment, won’t you? Until this year, no woman has ever landed on Forbes’s list of the world’s highest-paid comedians. For years and years, the list of the Globe’s richest funny people has been a veritable fraternity of man after dude after bro. This year, that finally changed—because of Amy Schumer.
The comedian landed the fourth spot on the list, pulling in $17 million last year. The whopping sum is largely due to her $8 million book deal for her memoir, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, her breakthrough film, Trainwreck, and her commercial for Bud Light, which earned Schumer a seven-figure paycheck, Forbes reports. The Emmy winner also does numerous stand-up shows per year, a “historic moneymaker for the majority of male comedians on the ranking,” Forbes notes.
This year, Schumer broke another record when she became the first woman to headline a comedy show at Madison Square Garden. Her success on the road separates her from other successful and high-profile female comics, Forbes adds, including Tina Fey and Chelsea Handler (who is no slouch herself, reportedly earning $10 million from her deal with Netflix).
Anyway, for those who are curious, the top three male comedians on the list were Terry Fator ($21 million), Jerry Seinfeld ($43.5 million), and, at first place, Kevin Hart ($87.5 million). Schumer's milestone aside, Hart's achievement was also a major breakthrough: he is the first person to take the top spot from Seinfeld, the list’s long-reigning champion (is there anything sweeter than syndication money?). Aside from his numerous starring film roles, Hart is consistently on the road doing stand-up shows in gargantuan stadiums and arenas, grossing about $1 million per stop, Forbes estimates. When you break it down, those are some really valuable punchlines.
