FILE – Taylor Swift performs onstage during the “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at Foro Sol on August 24, 2023, in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Hector Vivas/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
Taylor Swift is truly in her “power era.”
The pop superstar was named by Forbes as the fifth-most powerful woman in the world, citing her economic, cultural and political clout, and outranking other musicians on the list like Beyoncé and Rihanna.
Forbes this week published its annual “World’s Most Powerful Women” list, which saw Swift soaring up the list from No. 79 in 2022 to No. 5 this year.
The list is determined by four main metrics: money, media, impact and spheres of influence, Forbes said.
The only other women who outpaced Swift on the list were European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (No. 1), Christine Lagarde, the European Central Bank president (No. 2), U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (No. 3), and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni (No. 4).
“All those people with hard power are truly powerful women,” Stacy Jones, founder of marketing agency Hollywood Branded, told Forbes, “but they’re not going to be able to change the world in the way that Taylor Swift is.”
It was the latest milestone for Swift, who was also named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year. The 33-year-old has dominated headlines this year with her sold-out “Eras Tour”, a massive concert movie in theaters, and her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Taylor Swift changes Karma lyric to ‘guy on the Chiefs’
Taylor Swift sings the song Karma with altered lyrics, “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me,” at her Nov. 11 show in Buenos Aires. Credit: @lautbritos via Storyful
Thanks to her global tour, Forbes noted how Swift became a billionaire in October – making her “the rare recording artist to achieve ten-figure status, joining the likes of Jay-Z (net worth: $2.5 billion) and Rihanna ($1.4 billion).”
The publication also highlighted the “wide financial halo” of the so-called “Taylor Swift Effect.”
Two nights of her tour in Denver added $140 million to Colorado’s gross domestic product, thanks to fans spending an average $1,300 apiece on hotels, restaurants and retailers, according to Forbes.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Travel Association estimated that the U.S. leg of the “Eras” tour added more than $5 billion collectively to state economies.
“She’s like a big corporation, essentially, operating in many sectors,” labor economist and University of Chicago professor Carolyn Sloan told Forbes. “Her audience has skewed so young and so female for so long that people may have underestimated how big this thing could be, economically. I don’t think anybody doubts that today.”
Other notable figures on this year’s powerful women list include CVS CEO Karen Lynch (No. 6), JD.com CEO and executive director Sandy Ran Xu (No. 20), Banco de Brasil President Tarciana Paula Gomes Medeiros (No. 24), and Beyoncé (No. 36).
