Rihanna is not only the world’s wealthiest female musician, but she is also the youngest self-made billionaire in the United States, with a net worth of $1.4 billion.
The Bajan singer’s net worth is estimated to be around $1.4 billion, and she is also the second wealthiest entertainer in the world behind Oprah Winfrey.
According to Forbes, as the youngest self-made billionaire woman in the U.S, Rihanna earned the title for many things, chief of which is the fact that she did not grow up “in a Manhattan high rise or the Hollywood Hills.” Rising from her humble beginnings on the island of Barbados, Rihanna’s massive wealth came from her grit and hard work as an entertainer and her various beauty ventures.
This week the Forbes list revealed that the 34-year-old mother of one and multihyphenate Fenty Beauty CEO remained on the list of America’s richest self-made women for the third time.
She came in at No. 21 and is the list’s only billionaire under the age of 40. Most of her net worth comes from her Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, and Savage X Fenty line of businesses, while her music (with self-owned masters) accounts for the remainder.
Rihanna’s wealth could also be tripled if all goes according to plan based on a Blomberg report which said that the Savage X Fenty lingerie business could be launched as an IPO, and its value is around $3 billion.
Her share in the company is 30%, while she owns 50% of Fenty Beauty, with French Luxury fashion house LVMH owning the other half. That company generated half a billion in revenue in 2020.
In the meantime, the nine-time Grammy Award winner and new mother has always been generous in sharing her massive wealth through her Clara Lionel Foundation, CLF, named after her grandparents.
Through the organization, Rihanna has donated millions to several causes, including to her island home Barbados which named her a National Hero for her contributions to nationhood.
Among her various charitable actions were $60 million for women and children living in HIV/AIDS and her #SmartSmall initiative with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey to donate a combined $15 million to 18 different climate justice groups.
“The majority of her $1.7 billion estimated net worth is not from singing but from cosmetics,” Forbes editor Kerry Dolan said in a Good Morning America interview.
“From a super-successful cosmetics line which, when it was launched, drew lots of praise because there were something, like, more than 40 shades for all range of skin tones, which was something that at the time, not very many cosmetics lines had been that inclusive.”
“Women are making more headway, slowly but surely as super-successful entrepreneurs,” Dolan also said about other women who were climbing the ranks slowly.
“So we will see more famous artists, entertainers, and performers go into a successful entrepreneurial vein. It’s been proved as a proven formula for some people so others would like to try it.”
While Rihanna has not reacted to the third consecutive listing, the singer has spoken in the past about her motivations to continue to work despite amassing wealth.
“My money is not for me; it’s always the thought that I can help someone else,” she said in a 2019 interview. “The world can really make you believe that the wrong things are priority, and it makes you really miss the core of life, what it means to be alive.”
