Like Diamonds in the Sky, Rihanna Has Reportedly Reached Billionaire Status

Looks like all that “work, work, work, work, work” paid off.

We’ve yet to sample Rihanna’s first Fenty fragrance, which hits the market August 10, but we bet it smells like money. Forbes reports the Barbadian bad gal is now a billionaire; and it’s not due to her singing, but her style and savvy. What’s more? According to the magazine’s calculations, the unstoppable and intoxicating force that is Rihanna has catapulted her to the top female earners in her industry, eclipsed only by Oprah.

Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion, Forbes 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 Forbes can now confirm she owns 50%. Much of the rest lies in her stake 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.

Of course, it must be noted that we are talking about Forbes, which recently miscalculated the net worth of Kanye West and also made some dubious assessments to calculate Kylie Jenner’s billionaire status in 2018. (We love the way you lie, Forbes—we kid, we kid). Nevertheless, the outlet has been firm on Rih’s status as the world’s richest female musician since mid-2019, when she had an estimated fortune worth $600 million. Fenty Beauty’s first year alone brought in approximately a half billion in revenue, so it’s not entirely out of the realm of reasonable thinking that with steady growth and strategic investments (and divestments from less profitable ventures like her luxury line) the entertainer-entrepreneur may have tripled her wealth in the two years since, despite not releasing a new album since 2016's Anti.

In other words, Rih may be bad, but she’s perfectly good at it.