The latest news about Rihanna once again has nothing to do with her long-awaited music album but with her fortune status as a beauty and fashion mogul. According to Forbes, Rihanna is now officially a billionaire.
When Robyn Fenty, recognized to the world as Rihanna, started Fenty Beauty in 2017, she tried to create a cosmetics company that made “women everywhere (feel) included.” A perhaps unintended consequence: The beauty line has supported her enter one of the world’s most elite ranks, a Billionaire.
Rihanna Net Worth
According to Forbes, The net worth of Rihanna is $1.7 billion, making her the richest female musician in the world and second richest female entertainer after Oprah Winfrey.
Estimation of Rihanna Net Worth
It’s not the music of Rihanna that’s made her so rich. The majority of her fortune (an estimated $1.4 billion) comes from the value of Fenty Beauty, of which Forbes can now verify she owns 50%. Much of the rest lies in her stake in her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, worth an estimated $270 million, and her income from her career as a chart-topping musician and actress.
While Barbados-born Rihanna is not the only celebrity to benefit from her social media presence—she has 103 million followers on Instagram and 102.7 million on Twitter—to establish a beauty brand, she is the most flourishing beauty entrepreneur to do so.
It’s been five years since the “bad gal” from Barbados released a new album — her 2016 instant classic “Anti” spent 63 weeks on the Billboard charts. Instead, she’s devoted her time to building her business realm through her Fenty Beauty makeup line and her Savage x Fenty lingerie line.
Fenty Beauty, a 50-50 joint venture with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (operated by Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest person), was launched in 2017 to inclusivity. Its products come in a different range of colors—the foundation is offered in 50 shades, including harder-to-find darker shades for women of color—and are represented in its advertising by an equally diverse group of people.
Available online and at Sephora stores, which LVMH also owns, the products were an instant success. By 2018, its first full calendar year, the line was bringing in more than $550 million in annual revenues, according to LVMH, beating out other celebrity-founded brands like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, Kim Kardashian West’s KKW Beauty, and Jessica Alba’s Honest Co.
“A lot of women felt there were no lines out there that catered to their skin tone. It was light, medium, medium dark, dark,” says Shannon Coyne, co-founder of consumer products consultancy Bluestock Advisors. “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.’“
While cosmetics sales reduced during the pandemic, beauty companies are worth as much as ever. Stocks of more giant beauty conglomerates like Estée Lauder and L’Oréal have bounced back, reaching all-time highs and trading at an impressive 7.5 (or more) times annual revenues. Meanwhile, independent brands like Beautycounter and Charlotte Tilbury inked deals with investment firms earlier this year at billion-dollar valuations.
That is good news for Rihanna. Thanks to the powerful multiples at which beauty companies are trading, Fenty Beauty is worth a conservative $2.8 billion, Forbes estimates. And all signs point to the company continuing to grow. In its annual report for 2020, LVMH said Fenty Skin, which launched last year, was off to a “very promising start” and “generated unprecedented buzz,” and that Fenty Beauty “maintained its appeal as a premier makeup brand.”
Fenty Beauty is not Rihanna’s only billion-dollar brand. In February, her lingerie line Savage x Fenty raised $115 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. The company, which launched in 2018 as a joint enterprise with TechStyle Fashion Group, counts blue-chip investors like Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners and private equity firm L. Catterton (in which Bernard Arnault is an investor) as shareholders. Rihanna maintains a 30% ownership stake, Forbes estimates. The latest round of funding will reportedly be used for customer acquisition and retail expansion.
Not that everything Rihanna touches turns to gold. In February, LVMH and Rihanna confirmed in a statement to Forbes that they had shut down their other venture, a high-end fashion and accessories house also called Fenty. Launched in 2019, Fenty sought to extend Rihanna’s brand of inclusivity and offer styles in various sizes. But like many luxury fashion brands, the high-priced line suffered during the pandemic, releasing its last collection in November 2020.
The only objection some fans may have about her career as a fashion and beauty mogul? It keeps her occupied. The singer, who used to release an album almost every year, has not released a new album since 2016’s Anti.
From a financial perspective, that may be just fine: “She is creating a brand outside of herself. It’s not just about Rihanna,” says consultant Coyne. “Even if you don’t like her music, she’s created a real style in the fashion and beauty space.”
Early Life of Rihanna
Rihanna’s complete name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty. She was born on February 20, 1988, in Barbados. Rihanna has encountered many hardships during her childhood days. Her father was a drunkard and used to torture her mother. Rihanna has many step-brothers and step-sisters. During her childhood days, she used to sell clothes with her father to support the family.
As a child, she listened to Caribbean music, such as reggae, as well as American hip-hop and R&B. She especially enjoyed singing and won a high-school talent show with a performance of a Mariah Carey song.
Rihanna started her career as a singer at the age of 16 years. At the age of 16, record producer Evan Rogers called her for recording in the US. In 2005, Rihanna released her first studio album ‘Music of the Sun’, which then had reached the top 10 of Billboard 200 chart.
In less than a year, she released her second studio album ‘A Girl Like Me’ in 2006, which reached the top five of Billboard’s albums chart.
Along with being a singer, Rihanna is also an actress. She has acted in films like Ocean’s 8 and Guava Island. Besides acting and singing, Rihanna also has a fashion brand in her name called ‘Fenty.’
Some Lesser-Known Facts About Rihanna
There are many things you may not know about Rihanna. Let’s find out some lesser-known facts about her.
Rihanna won a beauty pageant in high school.
In 2004, a year before her first hit single “Pon de Replay” was released, Rihanna won her high-school beauty pageant. She was honored Miss Combermere, in part, because of her performance of Mariah Carey’s “Hero” in the talent portion.
She told The Daily Mail in 2007 that she’d joined the pageant on a dare.
- She took military training in Barbados.
Before becoming a worldwide sensation, Rihanna was an army cadet in a sub-military program in Barbados, the singer’s home country.
In the same Daily Mail interview, she told the publication that her military training encouraged her to compete in the beauty pageant.
One of Rihanna’s most successful songs topped the charts for 10 weeks in a row.
In 2011, Rihanna saw significant success with her song “We Found Love,” featuring DJ Calvin Harris. The song topped the charts for 10 weeks in a row and was on the Top 100 charts for nearly a year.
According to New Musical Express magazine, Harris later told The Sun in 2012 that the song completely changed his career.
Rihanna also broke multiple Guinness World Records, including “most consecutive years of UK no. 1 singles,” “female artist with most US no. 1 singles in a year,” and “most digital no. 1 singles in the US.”
Rihanna sometimes sneaks into her audience before shows.
Rihanna’s preshow routines include a diluted shot and sometimes sneaking into the audience to watch the opening act.
She told Esquire in 2011 that she takes the shot to calm her nerves before every show.
She is appreciated for her philanthropic work.
Rihanna won the 2017 Harvard Humanitarian of the Year award for her dedicated work and philanthropic service over the past decade.
In addition to being involved in various of her own nonprofits, including the Clara Lionel Foundation, Rihanna hosts a highly successful charity ball every year called the Diamond Ball.
Most recently, her Clara Lionel Foundation donated $5 million to coronavirus relief efforts.
Rihanna wasn’t allowed to wear makeup growing up
Although she’s now a beauty mogul, Rihanna was not allowed to wear makeup growing up.
“My mom wasn’t flexible. I wore no makeup,” she told InStyle in 2017.
Rihanna also said her love of all things beauty-related came from watching her mother work at a beauty counter when she was growing up.
- Rihanna signed her first record deal at 16 years old, and Jay-Z played a role in the offer.
After an audition for record producer Evan Rogers in 2003, Rihanna produced a demo in 2004 and was later flown to New York to meet with Jay-Z, the then-president of the Def Jam record label.
He liked to sign Rihanna so badly that the label’s meeting with her reportedly went until 3 a.m. while the lawyers finished all the details.
At the age of 16, Rihanna signed a deal with the label.
Although Rihanna is a big name in the music industry, she is now proving her skills in the field of business as a fashion and beauty mogul. As of the latest estimation, Rihanna is now officially a billionaire with all her effort and hard work.
