SUPERSTAR actress and humanitarian advocate Angelina Jolie has unseated talkshow diva Oprah Winfrey as the world’s most powerful celebrity in a new survey published by Forbes magazine .

The top ranking is based on income over the past 12 months as well as web references, press clippings, broadcast mentions and major magazine covers devoted to the celebrity, Forbes said.

Oscar winner Jolie, 33, one half of the Hollywood golden couple dubbed “Brangelina” with Brad Pitt, earned 27 million (about R217m) between June last year and June this year.

Jolie, who came in third last year, is known for balancing her movie career and work as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency with her ever-growing six- child family with Pitt.

In third place was pop legend Madonna – absent from last year’s top 10 – whose tabloid antics and hit world tour Hard Candy boosted her profile and earned her 110m, the magazine said.

In fourth place was singer and actress Beyonce Knowles with earnings of 87m, who was lauded by Forbes for her “multi-platform empire”.

The top male power-player, Tiger Woods, came in fifth with 110m in earnings.

Despite a year beset by injury, the star golfer remained the world’s highest paid athlete.

A lucrative touring schedule was enough to catapult rock legend Bruce Springsteen to the sixth spot with 70m in earnings, and bump director Steven Spielberg to seventh, whose work on the Indiana Jones sequel earned him 150m.

Actress Jennifer Aniston took the next spot, a cut above her former husband Pitt, with movie hits and tabloid splashes earning her the eighth spot.

With earnings of 28m, Pitt came in at ninth with his headline- making family life with partner Jolie and a blockbuster turn in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Rounding out the top 10 was basketball wizard Kobe Bryant, whose first appearance in the upper echelons of celebrity power came thanks to big-bucks endorsement deals after the Beijing Olympics.

At number 49 was Barack Obama – the first head of State to hit the Forbes’s Celebrity 100.

With his historic election to the United States presidency in November last year , the former Illinois senator and bestselling author became “the most famous person in the world”, Forbes said. — Sapa-AFP