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It’s official: Rihanna is the world’s first billionaire female musician.
The singer, entrepreneur and fashion designer cemented her status by a hefty margin, with Forbes reporting an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion. The nine-time Grammy winner’s fortune comes largely from a 50 percent stake in her Fenty Beauty cosmetics company, which holds a conservative total valuation of around $2.8 billion.
Another estimated $270 million comes from her 30 percent ownership stake in her $1 billion Savage x Fenty lingerie line, while earnings from a decade-spanning career as a chart-topping musician and actress account for the rest of Rhianna’s wealth. Her financial success also makes her the second richest female entertainer behind only Oprah Winfrey.
The Barbados-born artist isn’t the first to use a social media presence to build a beauty empire, but Forbes reports that she’s objectively been the most successful.
Leveraging tens of millions of followers across Twitter and Instagram, Rihanna teamed up with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH in 2017 to launch Fenty Beauty with the goal of creating inclusive products, including featuring harder-to-find darker shades of makeup for women of color.
“A lot of women felt there were no lines out there that catered to their skin tone. It was light, medium, medium dark, dark,” Shannon Coyne, cofounder of consumer products consultancy Bluestock Advisors, told Forbes. “We all know that’s not reality. She was one of the first brands that came out and said, ‘I want to speak to all of those different people.’”
Fenty Beauty had surpassed other celebrity-founded brands like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty, and Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. in annual revenues by the end of its first year.
And while the cosmetics industry entered a slump during the coronavirus pandemic, they’ve bounced back with strong form to trade at multiples higher than ever.
The “Diamonds” singer should be able to afford a few more.
