How the singer became the richest female musician on the planet. Hint: it wasn&#8217;t performing.



When Robyn Fenty, known to the world as Rihanna, launched Fenty Beauty in 2017, she sought to create a cosmetics company that made “women everywhere (feel)&nbsp;included.” A perhaps unintended consequence: The beauty line has helped her enter one of the world’s most&nbsp;exclusive&nbsp;ranks: Billionaire.



Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates—making her the wealthiest female musician in the world and second only to Oprah Winfrey as the richest female entertainer. But it’s not her music that’s made her so wealthy. The bulk of her fortune (an estimated $1.4 billion) comes from the value of Fenty Beauty, of which&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;can now confirm she owns 50%. Much of the rest lies in her stake&nbsp;in her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, worth an estimated $270 million, and her earnings from her career as a chart-topping musician and actress.



While Barbados-born Rihanna isn’t the only celebrity to capitalize on her social media presence —she has 101 million followers on Instagram and 102.5 million on Twitter—to build a beauty brand, she is the most successful beauty entrepreneur to do so. Fenty Beauty, which is a 50-50 joint venture with French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH (run by Bernard Arnault, the world’s second richest person), launched in 2017 with the goal of inclusivity. Its products come in a diverse range of colors—foundation is offered in 50 shades, including harder-to-find darker shades for women of color—and are modeled in its advertising by an equally diverse group of people.&nbsp;



Available online and at Sephora stores, which are also owned by LVMH, the products were an instant success. By 2018, its first full calendar year, the line was bringing in more than $550 million in annual revenues, according to LVMH, beating out other celebrity-founded brands like Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, Kim Kardashian West’s KKW Beauty and Jessica Alba’s Honest Company.



“A lot of women felt there were no lines out there that catered to their skin tone. It was light, medium, medium dark, dark,” says Shannon Coyne, cofounder of consumer products consultancy Bluestock Advisors. “We all know that’s not reality. She was one of the first brands that came out and said ‘I want to speak to all of those different people.’”



While cosmetics sales slowed during the pandemic, beauty companies are worth as much as ever. Stocks of larger beauty conglomerates like Estee Lauder and L&#8217;Oreal have bounced back, reaching all-time highs and trading at impressive 7.5 (or more) times annual revenues. Meanwhile independent brands like Beautycounter and Charlotte Tilbury inked deals with investment firms earlier this year at billion-dollar valuations.



That is good news for Rihanna. Thanks to the impressive multiples at which beauty companies are trading, Fenty Beauty is worth a conservative $2.8 billion,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates. And all signs point to the company continuing to grow. In its annual report for 2020, LVMH said Fenty Skin, which launched last year, was off to a “very promising start” and “generated unprecedented buzz,” and that Fenty Beauty &#8220;maintained its appeal as a premier make up brand.&#8221;



Fenty Beauty isn’t Rihanna’s only billion-dollar brand. In February her lingerie line&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/02/10/rihannas-lingerie-line-savage-x-fenty-raises-115-million-on-same-day-lvmh-announces-its-closing-her-fashion-house/">Savage x Fenty raised $115 million in funding</a>&nbsp;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 (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/05/12/why-a-private-equity-firm-backed-by-bernard-arnault-is-putting-400-million-into-norwegian-cruise-line/?sh=7fa14e343504">in which Bernard Arnault is an investor)</a>&nbsp;as shareholders. Rihanna maintains a 30% ownership stake,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates. The latest round of funding will reportedly be used for customer acquisition and retail expansion.&nbsp;



Not that everything Rihanna touches turns to gold.&nbsp; In February, LVMH and Rihanna&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2021/02/10/rihannas-lingerie-line-savage-x-fenty-raises-115-million-on-same-day-lvmh-announces-its-closing-her-fashion-house/?sh=4568e2373660">confirmed in a statement to&nbsp;Forbes</a>&nbsp;that they had shut down their other venture, a high-end fashion and accessories house also called Fenty. Launched in 2019, Fenty sought to extend Rihanna’s brand of inclusivity and offer styles in a range of sizes. But like many luxury fashion brands, the high-priced line suffered during the pandemic, releasing its last collection in November 2020.



The only complaint some fans may have about her career as a fashion and beauty mogul? It keeps her busy. The singer, who used to release an album almost every year, hasn’t released a new album since 2016’s&nbsp;Anti.&nbsp;



From a financial perspective, that may be just fine: “She is creating a brand outside of herself. It’s not just about Rihanna,” says consultant Coyne. “Even if you don&#8217;t like her music, she’s created a real style in the fashion and beauty space.”



by&nbsp;Madeline Berg, Forbes Staff

Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty Show Vol. 2 presented by Amazon Prime Video – Show & BTS

Fenty’s Fortune: Rihanna Is Now Officially A Billionaire

“Work, work, work, work, work, work.” That’s the opening line of Rihanna’s 2016 dancehall anthem titled, appropriately, “Work.” It could also serve as her personal motto.



Famous first as a singer, Robyn Rihanna Fenty, age 31, has since evolved into a style icon and makeup entrepreneur—and soon she’ll be the first black woman in charge of a major luxury fashion house. All those efforts add up to a $600 million fortune, making her the wealthiest female musician in the world, ahead of the likes of Madonna ($570 million), Céline Dion ($450 million) and Beyoncé ($400 million).



Most of that comes not from music but from her partnership with LVMH, the French luxury goods giant run by billionaire Bernard Arnault. Rihanna (pronounced Ri-Ann-ah, not Ri-Ah-nah as she recently clarified) and LVMH co-own the makeup brand Fenty Beauty. 



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It launched in September 2017 at Sephora, another LVMH brand, and online at FentyBeauty.com, quickly becoming a viral success. Fenty Beauty racked up a reported $100 million in sales in its first few weeks, propelled by Rihanna’s fame and 71 million Instagram followers.



The entire personal care industry in America has grown huge in recent years. According to Grand View Research,&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-personal-care-products-market" target="_blank">it could swell to more than $200 billion in sales by 2025</a>, up from closer to $130 billion in 2016.&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www.capstoneheadwaters.com/sites/default/files/Capstone%20Headwaters%20Personal%20Care%20Products%20%26%20Services%20M%26A%20Coverage%20Report%20-%20Q4%202018.pdf" target="_blank">The market saw a record&nbsp;</a>134 M&amp;A deals last year, including P&amp;G&#8217;s $250 million purchase of 10-year-old First Aid Beauty. 



Perhaps the most telling data point: 11 of the 80 women on&nbsp;Forbes&#8216; list of the Richest Self-Made Women made their money in beauty or skincare products. Many did what Rihanna did, turn to the low-cost marketing opportunity presented by social media. That works best for existing celebrities, as&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2019/03/05/at-21-kylie-jenner-becomes-the-youngest-self-made-billionaire-ever/" target="_blank">Kylie Jenner and her Kylie Cosmetics</a>&nbsp;proved out, who can push their new products at their existing followers.



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Fenty Beauty has differentiated itself in another way, releasing 40 shades of foundation, far more than the handful of hues sold by other brands. “It challenged the standard convention that you only needed a very defined set of shades to satisfy a market,” says Stephanie Wissink, a research analyst at Jefferies. “Not only did [Fenty Beauty] achieve meaningful sales, but it potentially changed the industry permanently.”&nbsp;



Sales continue to soar. Fenty Beauty generated an estimated $570 million in revenue last year, after only 15 months in business. The entire operation is worth, conservatively, more than $3 billion.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates thatLVMH owns an estimated 50% of it, while Rihanna has about 15%, a figure a spokesperson for the artist disputed but wouldn’t clarify further.



The Barbados native, who overcame hardships including an abusive addict father and a well-publicized assault by then-boyfriend Chris Brown in 2009, also co-owns the Savage X Fenty lingerie line with Los Angeles-based online fashion firm TechStyle Fashion Group and has millions in earnings from her career touring and releasing as a singer, which make up the rest of her fortune.



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Her empire continues to grow. In May, LVMH and Rihanna announced Fenty, a new clothing house that will make high-end clothes, shoes, accessories and jewelry.



“They extended the offer to me and it was a no-brainer because LVMH is a machine,” Rihanna told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/20/t-magazine/rihanna-fenty-louis-vuitton.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The New York Times Style Magazine</a>. “Bernard Arnault was so enthusiastic; he trusted me and my vision.”



The fashion line, which launched online in May, includes sizes up to U.S. 14, embodying the same inclusive ideal of Fenty Beauty. It will exist under the same umbrella as famous brands such as Dior and Givenchy, marking LVMH’s first new house in more than 30 years.



“What Fenty Beauty did to beauty, Fenty lifestyle is going to do to fashion,” says Wissink. “It’s going to raise the bar for what it looks like to build a brand that’s inclusive, game changing, global and iconic.”



-Natalie Robehmed; Forbes Staff

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