MUMBAI - Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has joined the billionaire club for the first time, becoming one of the world's richest actors, according to a new list.
The 59-year-old's net worth is estimated at a staggering $1.4billion (£1.03billion), according to the Hurun India Rich List 2025, an annual ranking of India's wealthiest individuals. This puts him in the league of global celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, pop star Rihanna, golfer Tiger Woods, and singer Taylor Swift, whose net worth is pegged at $1.6billion by Forbes Magazine.
Other Bollywood personalities on the list include actress Juhi Chawla, actors Hrithik Roshan and Amitabh Bachchan and film director Karan Johar. Often called Bollywood's king of romance, Khan has spent more than three decades in the Hindi film industry and reinvented himself from being an actor to running a major production house and owning a cricket team. "Khan's billionaire status is driven mainly by his stakes in Red Chillies Entertainment [his production company] and Knight Rider Sports [his IPL cricket club]," Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and chief researcher at Hurun India, told the BBC.
His other sources of income include film earnings, advertisements as well as reported investments in real estate across the world. Khan's entry in the billionaire list is a reflection of the changing nature of India's economic growth drivers, according to Mr Junaid. "As the Indian economy matures and moves to its next stage of wealth creation, we are seeing new centres of value emerge beyond traditional sectors like manufacturing, IT and banking," Mr Junaid said. Sports, entertainment and IP-driven businesses are now "serious engines of wealth creation in India", he added.
According to Mr Junaid, this is similar to the evolution that took place in the US, where rich lists that were once dominated by industrialists and bankers now feature sports-team owners, media moguls and celebrity-led brands - from Michael Jordan and LeBron James to Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé. But according to Forbes, while many celebrities are incredibly wealthy, "it's rare for their net worths to stretch all the way to ten figures", with less than two dozen people on the planet having accomplished that feat. (BBC/ Getty Images)
