How Rihanna became a Billionaire, through her own cosmetics brand
Four years have passed since Grammy award winner, Raihana launched her cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty in conjunction with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s Kendo, and that singlehandedly contributed to her landing at the billionaire’s list. The brand was able to generate a revenue of over 100 million dollars through sales within the first 40 days of the launch.
Raihana today has a net worth of 1.7 billion dollars and a large portion of that comes from her 50 % stake at Fenty Beauty, the other 50 % is owned by LVMH. Financial reports estimate that these stakes are worth 2.8 billion dollars “conservatively”.
Forbes estimated that Fenty was bringing over “550 million dollars in revenue since 2018.” The imperative success of the brand is visible as Riahana then went on to launch her own Fenty fragrance, which would be available on every e-commerce site by the 10th of august.
Much of the rest [of Rihanna’s net worth] lies in her stake in Savage x Fenty,” the lingerie brand that she launched with Techstyle in May 2018. The subscription-centric Savage x Fenty – which boasts bras in sizes 32A to 38DD, underwear up to a size 3X, and other lingerie that ranges from extra small to 3X – was valued at $1 billion in February 2021 in connection with a $115 million Series B funding round.
The success of the Fenty Beauty brand is not surprising as there is no shortage of celebrities who have rushed to get in on the $500 billion global beauty segment and developed products to their sizable bases of devoted fans. The list of celebrities includes but is not limited to Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Jennifer Lopez, and Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown.
Most of them have gravitated towards the cosmetics and skincare space, and are readily going beyond the traditional licensed fragrance model that long served as the standard for famous faces to boost their bottom lines in the consumer products space.
This larger trend also comes as savvy celebs – armed with millions of social media followers – and their management teams have been looking to rethink the structure and strategy behind such ventures, distancing themselves from the largely one-dimensional deals of the past, which saw famous figures paid to appear on packaging and in ad campaigns for licensed fragrances under their names, and moving towards more hands-on and potentially lucrative arrangements with equity and/or profit-sharing elements in place.
