Irish writer Oscar Wilde famously said: "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

If Wilde, who died in 1900, were alive today, no doubt he would have quipped: "There is only one thing in life worse than being Tweeted about, and that is not being Tweeted about."

Wilde's wisdom must be the explanation behind the most surprising personality to show up on Forbes magazine's annual "Celebrity 100" list, which was released last week.

Never mind that Tiger Woods continues to weather the fallout from his publicly revealed sexcapades. Never mind that, according to the gossip-scandal website TMZ, Woods is about to write his soon-to-be ex-wife a $100 million divorce settlement check.

Tiger still amassed enough cash and buzz and star power last year to enable him to clock in at No. 5 on the Forbes list, behind only queen-bee Oprah at No. 1, followed by (in order) pop star Beyonce, filmmaker James Cameron and shock-schlock pop diva Lady Gaga.

The Forbes ranking isn't a richest celebrity list -- although pulling in a lot of cash certainly helps. Rather, the list's calculus weighs stars' income, "social rank" (via number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers), Google hits, press mentions (as calculated by Factiva), television and radio mentions (as calculated by LexisNexis) and the number of times a celeb's image appeared on the cover of 25 select magazines.

Hey Tiger, here's another Oscar quote for you: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."¶

No, Tiger, Wilde did not mean that we the little people are looking up at you and other star celebrities. What he meant was . . . oh, never mind.

Forbes estimated Tiger's income for the past year at $105 million. But the magazine estimates his net worth at $600 million, noting that Nike and many other sponsors did not leap off the Tiger bandwagon.

Gazing at the Forbes list -- from the Jonas Brothers at No. 40 to country star Toby Keith at No. 67 to actress Mariska Hargitay at No. 100 -- can be discombobulating and perspective-twisting for us mere, gutter-dwelling mortals.

Wow, Tiger will have "only" $5 mil of his $105 million income left after he pays off his wife/ex-wife!

Poor Tom Cruise (No. 56) racked up only $22 million in income last year -- a pauper's wage!

Venus Williams (No. 83, with an income of $15.5 mil) must be insanely jealous of her much richer sister, Serena (No. 61, with a haul of $20 mil last year)!

And the list offers up a few curiosities.

Didn't the rock band Coldplay go cold several millennia ago? Yet the lads and their $48 million income clocked in at No. 35.

Meanwhile Britney Spears, who couldn't get arrested last year, shot to No. 6 on the list, with an income of $64 million. A Woods-ian type scandal or two and perhaps Brit can surpass Oprah and her $315 million income.

While Lady Gaga and her outlandish, look-at-me-antics certainly paid off, country stars Taylor Swift (No. 12, $45 mil), Kenny Chesney (No. 54, $50 mil), Keith Urban (No. 76, $27.5 mil) and Toby Keith pocketed their mega-cash by playing the mom-and-apple-pie game.

And the next time conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck start to bash Hollywood or media elites, consider that Limbaugh placed No. 19 on Forbes elite list (with $58.5 mil), and Beck placed at No. 43 (with $35 mil).

Meanwhile, I calculate Oscar Wilde's current celebrity ranking at No. 1,567,928, and his income this past year at $543.67 (with most of that coming from used paperback sales of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" to high school English lit students).

But take comfort, Oscar: Fifty years from now, your bons mots will still retain their star power, long after the fame of Forbes' celebrities has withered like that portrait of Dorian Gray.

Rick de Yampert is The Daytona Beach News-Journal's entertainment writer. He can be reached at rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com