Robyn Rihanna Fenty has officially been declared a billionaire by Forbes magazine.
The Barbadian singer and fashion designer has become the wealthiest female musician in the world.
The business magazine, Forbes, which tracks and publishes data on the world’s wealthiest individuals, reported that the 33-year-old pop star’s estimated net worth to be 1.7 billion dollars, making her the wealthiest female musician and the second-richest woman in entertainment behind Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey holds the crown with a net worth of 2.7 billion dollars. Oprah’s work in television attributes to much of her multi-billion-dollar net worth. Her syndicated talk show, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history, ran for 25 years.
Well for Rihanna, it’s been five years since the “bad gal” from Barbados dropped a new album, her 2016 instant classic ‘Anti’ spent 63 weeks on the Billboard charts. Instead, she’s dedicated her time to building her business empire through her Fenty Beauty makeup line and her Savage x Fenty lingerie line.
Forbes estimates Fenty Beauty alone is worth 2.8 billion dollars. In 2018, the makeup brand, which is sold at Sephora stores, was generating more than 550 million dollars in annual revenues, earning more than Kim Kardashian West’s KKW Beauty, Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, and Jessica Alba’s Honest Company, the magazine reported.
Historically, women’s fashion and beauty brands have perpetuated Eurocentric and often unrealistic standards of beauty. 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, co-founder 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'”. 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”.
Shannon Coyne
Forbes reported that Rihanna also owns 30% of Savage x Fenty, which raised 115 million dollars in February after receiving a 1 billion dollars valuation. LVMH CEO, Bernard Arnault, and rapper Jay Z are also principal investors in the lingerie brand.
Rihanna’s Fenty brand faces trouble
Meanwhile, earlier this year, Rihanna was accused of cultural appropriation after she posed topless for an Instagram shot while wearing just silk boxers and a necklace featuring the Hindu god Ganesha.
The image, in promotion of her Savage x Fenty lingerie line, angered some fans, with one labeling it “disrespect 101”.
Well, it was not the first time she has been accused of cultural insensitivity, with the singer apologizing to the Muslim community over her “unintentionally offensive” use of sacred texts during another lingerie fashion show. After she was criticized for using a song featuring a sample from Islam’s sacred Hadith texts, she thanked fans for what she called an “honest, yet careless mistake”.
She also drew the fury of India’s government in February after tweeting in support of farmers who were protesting in New Delhi over agriculture laws.
The Indian government later criticized celebrities who backed the cause on social media, claiming they were neither “accurate nor responsible”.
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