Rihanna has become the world’s wealthiest female musician, with a fortune of $1.7 billion.
Her riches, however, do not come from chart-topping songs — though she has had many — but from her thriving cosmetics brand.
According to Forbes, which has reported that Rihanna is officially a billionaire, her cosmetics brand, Fenty Beauty, is worth $2.8 billion. The rest of her fortune is derived from her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, which is worth an estimated $270 million, and her earnings from music and acting.
The singer, 33, whose real name is Robyn Fenty, is now the world’s second-richest female entertainer and sits behind only Oprah Winfrey, whose fortune is estimated at $2.7 billion.
The Barbadian artist has sold more than 250 million records worldwide but has not released an album since Anti in 2016. It spent 63 weeks on the Billboard charts. She has instead spent her time building a business empire.
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In 2017, she launched Fenty Beauty in partnership with luxury goods firm LVMH. The aim of the line, Rihanna said at the time, was to appeal to “every type of woman”. In a pioneering move, the company launched 40 different shades of make-up, challenging established brands which were widely seen as Euro-centric. In its first year, the company recorded $550 million in revenue, LVMH said.
“She was one of the first brands that came out and said, ‘I want to speak to all of those different people’,” Shannon Coyne, co-founder of the consumer product consultancy Bluestock Advisors, told Forbes. “A lot of women felt there were no lines out there that catered to their skin tone. It was light, medium, medium dark, dark. We all know that’s not reality.”
Rihanna’s arrival on the scene pushed rivals to broaden their range of make-up shades in a process dubbed the “Fenty Effect”. Her fashion label was less successful. This year she agreed with LVMH to shutter it after less than two years.
“Everyone knows Rihanna as a wonderful singer, but through our partnership at Fenty Beauty, I discovered a true entrepreneur, a real CEO and a terrific leader,” said Bernard Arnault, LVMH chief executive and the world’s third-richest person, with an estimated fortune of $179 billion.