The most famous living person in the world is still a footballer from Madeira
Cristiano Ronaldo holds the Alive list at No. 1 in September 2026, more than five points clear of Donald Trump, and leads Portugal, Africa, Europe and every footballer on earth.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the first name on The Most Famous People in the World Alive for the second month running. His fame score for September 2026 is 48.2, which places him at No. 2 on the standard list, The 100 Most Famous People in the World, behind only Jesus Christ. Among the living, no one is near him. Donald Trump, the most famous living politician, scores 42.8; Lionel Messi, the footballer he has been measured against for two decades, scores 40.9.
The gap is the story, and it is a durable one. Fame scores in the journal are the rankings' assessment of overall global fame, built from years of independent public evidence, and a spread of more than five points between No. 1 and No. 2 on the Alive list is a spread that a single month of headlines does not produce. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped precisely so that a week of news moves a name a few places, not dozens. Ronaldo's position is the residue of years, not of September.
Where else he stands
Ronaldo is the most famous living person in Portugal, a list he leads in the Alive reading even as the standard list there is topped by Jesus Christ. He is also the most famous person in two of the journal's nine regions, Africa and Europe, and the most famous footballer in the world, No. 1 on the soccer sector list. His chart history in the journal now spans two issues; with both frozen under different methodology versions, the journal prints the two standings side by side and compares neither.
The rest of the living top ten
Behind Ronaldo and Trump come Messi, Justin Bieber and Rihanna, then Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Shakira, Beyoncé and Eminem. Seven of the ten are musicians or entertainers, two are footballers, one is a president. Five are American, and the five who are not come from Portugal, Argentina, Canada, Barbados and Colombia.
The full list of one hundred living people, with their scores and their standing on the standard list, is at The Most Famous People in the World Alive, September 2026.
More from the journal
The month in fame, September 2026
The second issue opens with the same name at the top and a wider gap behind him: Jesus Christ at 55.7, Ronaldo the most famous living person again, and a hundred on which seventy-seven are alive.
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · October 2, 2026
The month in fame, August 2026
The first issue of the record opens with a name that has held the world's attention for two thousand years, a footballer who holds it now, and a list on which the living and the dead are measured on one scale.
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · September 5, 2026
Twenty-three of the hundred are dead. That is the record.
Why the standard list ranks the living and the dead together, who the twenty-three are, and what the Alive list is for.
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · October 2, 2026
Around the world, September 2026
Sixty-one country lists, fifty-six named No. 1s, twenty-five of them the same man. A tour of the second issue's map.
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · October 2, 2026