Michael Jackson out-earns every living celeb

Long known as the King of Pop, Michael Jackson can now lay claim to another honorific. Forbes has released its annual list of top-earning dead celebrities, and Jackson sits at the top by a country mile — in fact, his haul sets a record for any annual take for any celebrity, dead or alive, according to Forbes.

Jackson, who died in 2009, earned an astonishing $825 million. Most of that is attributable to the sale of his Sony/ATV music-publishing catalog, which fetched $750 million in March.

The world's top-earning living celebrity this year, not surprisingly, Taylor Swift, with $170 million. Boy band One Direction is second on the list with $110 million. The top ten featured people from a variety of backgrounds, from writer James Patterson, footballers Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, to Adele and comedian Kevin Hart.

Taking a far-distant second on the dead celeb's list is “Peanuts” mastermind Charles Schulz, who earned $48 million, despite having died in 2000 at age 77. Coming in third was recently deceased golf great Arnold Palmer, who pulled in $40 million.

Fourth-place Elvis Presley nabbed $27 million, while Prince, who died at age 57 in April, had a $25 million haul.

Source: Forbes