Rihanna becomes the richest female musician in the world, $1.7 billion at 33

Robyn Fenty who is known to the world as Rihanna has officially become a billionaire; she runs a cosmetics company that made “women everywhere (feel) included.” A perhaps unintended consequence: The beauty line, however,  has helped her enter one of the world’s most exclusive ranks: Billionaire.

According to Forbes estimates, Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion, —making her the wealthiest female musician in the world and second only to Oprah Winfrey as the richest female entertainer.

Although the 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.

More so, it is 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.

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 colours—the foundation is offered in 50 shades, including harder-to-find darker shades for women of colour—and are modelled in its advertising by an equally diverse group of people.