Beauty Brands Make Bad Girl Ri Ri a Billionaire

It’s official. Music is a side hustle for Rihanna.

RiRi may have sold 60 million albums and 215 million digital tracks worldwide, according to her label Roc Nation, to make her the top-selling digital artist of all time — but when it comes to total earnings those from her 18-year music career aren’t even an umbrella-worthy drop in the bucket compared to those from her fashion and beauty lines which bare her last name. 

Fenty Beauty (makeup) and Savage x Fenty (lingerie) are largely responsible for making the Barbadian, better known as Bad Girl in some parts, a billionaire. According to Forbes the 33-year-old’s net worth is an estimated $1.7 billion dollars. It’s a breathtaking sum that makes the eight-time Grammy Award winner the wealthiest female musician and puts her only behind Oprah ($2.7) when it comes to female high-earners in entertainment.

Her 50% stake in Fenty Beauty accounts for the bulk of her fortune. Savage x Fenty, which she owns 30% of received a $1 billion valuation in February, is worth about $270 million, and the rest of her earnings come from her heralded music career and stints as an actress. 

What’s the secret to her business success? According to Shannon Coyne, cofounder of Bluestock Advisors, a consumer products consultancy, it is catering to the needs of women who up-till-now were ignored by the larger fashion and beauty industries. 

She was one of the first brands that came out and said, ‘I want to speak to all of those different people,’” Coyne 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.

Reaching billionaire status is something worth celebrating, but many fans are surely hoping that she will take a break from her many business ventures in the near-future and make a return to recording. 

Her eighth album “Anti” was released in 2016. It spent 63 weeks on the Billboard charts, peaking at No. 1, sold 11 million copies, and was named No. 7 on the list of 100 Best Albums of the 2010s by Billboard's staff which described it as Rihanna at her most confident.