Rihanna is officially a billionaire, and subsequently the wealthiest female musician in the world.
According to Forbes, Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion (£1.2 billion), making her the second wealthiest female entertainer on the planet, behind Oprah Winfrey with $2.7billion (£1.9billion).
The bulk of the Barbadian singer and fashion mogul’s fortune ($1.4billion/£1billion) comes not from music, but from her 50 percent stake in her acclaimed cosmetics line Fenty Beauty – a joint venture with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH – and worth $2.8billion (£2billion) in total.
Rihanna has also earned the rest of her fortune from her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, which is reportedly valued at $270m (£193m), and from her earnings as a musician and actor.
Forbes states that Fenty Beauty isn’t 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 venture 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.
In 2019, Rihanna told The New York Times Style Magazine that she did not name her brand after herself – Fenty is in fact her surname – as she did not want to become “oversaturated”.
“Every collaboration I did outside of music, I used Fenty so that you didn’t have to hear the word ‘Rihanna’ every time you saw something that I did,” she explained. “So Rihanna stayed the music, the person. But these other brands are called Fenty.”
The mogul’s fortune comes at an interesting time, however, with Rihanna having largely retreated from the industry that made her name.
It has been five years since the “Diamonds” singer released an album, and despite fans endlessly calling on her to unveil new music, she has been largely focused on her non-music businesses.
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