American rapper, Rihanna has emerged as the youngest self-made billionaire woman in the US for the third year in a row.
According to Forbes, she accumulated a net worth of $1.4bn at age 34, knocking Kim Kardashian to second place.
She’s the only billionaire under 40 on the list and she emerged a billionaire from her success from her cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty which “generated more than $550m in revenue in 2020”.
While Fenty Beauty “comprises the majority of her fortune,” it is far from Rihanna’s only source of income, as the outlet notes that the nine-time Grammy winner also earns a significant amount from her music career and her lingerie brand, Savage x Fenty, which “raised money at a $1bn valuation in February 2021”. Rihanna currently has a 30 per cent stake in the company.
As for her status as a self-made billionaire, Forbes has given Rihanna a “self-made score” of 10, a ranking the outlet explains ranges from one to 10 and indicates how much of one’s fortune they have inherited or built on their own.
According to Forbes, a ranking of one through five indicates “someone who inherited some or all of his or her fortune,” while scores six through 10 “are for those who built their company or established a fortune on his or her own”.
The entrepreneur, who is the only billionaire under 40 on this year’s list, is likely to continue building her empire, as she previously told The New York Times that a “number is not going to stop” her from continuing to work.
“I never thought I’d make this much money, so a number is not going to stop me from working,” Rihanna told the outlet in 2019.
In March, Bloomberg reported Savage X Fenty lingerie company was working with advisors on an initial public offering that could value the company at $3 billion or more. Rihanna owns 30 percent of that company.
