Let’s just start this off with a hair flip, because another woman has joined the billionaire’s club. And she is not only just another woman joining the billionaire’s club, she is a black woman. She is Janet Jackson; Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty.
The little girl from Gary Indiana has officially joined the ranks of Madonna, Oprah and Spanx creator Sara Blakely, just to name a few, as some of the richest women in the world. But instead of congratulating her accomplishments, the media is getting a little nit picky about the exact status of her residency in the billionaires club.
The breakdown goes a little something like this: Janet made a reported $81 million in music and book publishing, $260 million in album sales, $458 million in worldwide tour grosses, $60 million in tour sponsorships, $21.5 million in licensing and $304 million at the box office, which adds up to well over a billion dollars…over her career span, but not exactly in her net worth, as in assets and cash value.
Monetary billionaire or not, the bottom line is that Janet has brought in over a billion dollars during the span of her career and that is both something to marvel at as well as a monumental moment for women of color. Now that Janet and Oprah are at the top, nothing can stop us all from getting our Michelle Obama on.
We’re sure Oprah is holding out her arms exclaiming: “I’ve been waiting so long for company, Janet!”