Angelina Jolie is Forbes’s top star

The American actress Angelina Jolie has been named by /Forbes/ magazine the most powerful celebrity in the world, ousting Chicago chat show queen Oprah Winfrey from top spot. Winfrey slips to second in the annual Celebrity 100 List with Madonna third and Beyonce bringing up the rear in an all-female one-to-four.

Jolie earns only a tenth of what Winfrey makes - $275m a year - but makes number one, according to Forbes, because of her near-omnipresence in the pages of tabloid newspapers and celebrity magazines.

The irony is that she has been getting record exposure not because of her films but because her relationship to Brad Pitt, the father of her twins born last year, is apparently on the rocks.

The couple made a face-saving appearance on the red carpet at Cannes last month (cue more stunning pictures in the mags) but according to the watchers behind the crush barriers (if you believe the anonymous reports) the Hollywood couple both looked stony-faced whenever the paparazzi pointed their cameras in the other direction.

Quite what Forbes means by "powerful" remains an enigma. As one astute American reader of the celebrity mags commented online today: "Power is the ability to do things, or make other people do things. Jolie doesn't even have the power to make the press leave her alone."

The top man on the Forbes list was Tiger Woods at fifth, while Britain's TV talent show impresario Simon Cowell came 25th. Both put President Barack Obama in his place - 49th.