[imagesource: Getty Images]
Officially on Forbes’ billionaire radar is none other than Robyn Fenty, AKA Rihanna.
She better have that umbrella-ella-ella-eh ready because there is clearly cash raining down on her.
With an estimated net worth of $1,7 billion, the 33-year-old Barbadian singer, actress, fashion designer, and businesswoman has risen to the top.
She is now the wealthiest female musician in the world and the second-richest woman in entertainment behind Oprah Winfrey.
According to Forbes, Oprah is worth $2,7 billion.
As a master of many arts, you might be wondering which business endeavour helped secure her spot among the world’s richest.
You might think it was her music, given that’s the industry that propelled her to stardom. Then again, she hasn’t released an album since Anti, which came out five years ago.
Instead, most of her fortune comes from the value of her makeup range, Fenty Beauty, and her lingerie line, Savage x Fenty.
Fenty Beauty has revolutionised the beauty scene by including products for the whole spectrum of skin tones, leaning away from the old “Eurocentric and often unrealistic standards of beauty” that we see in women’s fashion and beauty brands all the time, per CNN:
One of the keys to Rihanna’s success has been marketing products to women of all shapes, sizes and skin shades, according to Shannon Coyne, cofounder of Bluestock Advisors, a consumer products consultancy.
“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.”
According to Forbes, Fenty Beauty is worth $2,8 billion alone, and Rihanna owns 50% of the company:
By 2018, its first full calendar year, the line was bringing in more than $550 million in annual revenues, according to LVMH [French luxury goods conglomerate run by Bernard Arnault, the world’s second-richest person], beating out other celebrity-founded brands like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, Kim Kardashian West’s KKW Beauty and Jessica Alba’s Honest Co.
Meanwhile, Savage x Fenty is worth an estimated $270 million, of which Rihanna owns 30% with Arnault and rapper Jay-Z as principal investors.
The lingerie brand managed to raise $115 million in February after receiving a $1 billion valuation.
She’s done well for herself already and Forbes reckons her fortune will only continue to grow.
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