Amy Schumer Is the First Woman to Land onForbes’ Highest-Paid Comedians List

Drink in that headline for a moment, won’t you? Until this year, no woman has ever landed onForbes’s list of theworld’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 ofAmy Schumer.
The comedianlanded 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, includingTina Fey andChelsea 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 wereTerry 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 somereally valuable punchlines.