Wednesday 01 June 2016 6:11 pm

Who runs the world? These Girls. Forbes names Oprah, Taylor Swift and Beyonce in list of top self-made women

Media empire builder and icon to middle-aged mums everywhere, Oprah has joined the founders of ABC Supply, Gap and Epic Systems in the Forbes list of wealthiest self-made women.

Oprah Winfrey, who ditched her daytime television contract to set up her own cable television network, OWN, is worth $3.1bn (£2.1bn) according to the financial magazine.

The conglomerate builder, who comes from humble beginnings in Mississippi, was pipped to the top spot in the Forbes the second annual list of America's richest self-made women by ABC Supply's Diane Jenkins who is worth an estimated $4.5bn.

Also in the top ten are Doris Fisher of Gap ($2.4bn), Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and formerly of eBay ($2.1bn) and Jin Sook Chang of Forever 21 ($1.9bn).

Elizabeth Holmes, founder and boss at health technology firm Theranos, who took pole position on the list in 2015, has been cut from the list this year following recent investigations involving Theranos and information indicating the firm’s revenues were less than projected.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg is in the number 14 spot this year.

Showing she's clearly an independent woman, Beyonce (at number 56) is on the self-made list after nearly two decades selling music. Meanwhile Taylor Swift, at just 26, has very little to have bad blood about – after a sell out tour and a royalties battle with Spotify she's new to the list this year (at number 60).

Pop music icon Madonna shows them both how it's done, landing at number 25 on the self-made rich list this year.

Also on the list was embattled Yahoo executive Marissa Meyer, who takes number 35 spot, with a net worth of around $450m. It's a jump of three spaces from her 2015 spot, despite repeated calls for her to resign from Yahoo after failing to turn around it's fortune.

But nobody said nabbing spots on this ranking would be easy.