We’ve always loved the Queen Rihanna, or Riri as she’s also called, here at Voices. But now there’s reason to show her even more love as the queen has officially , making her the world's richest female musician. Though her entry into the billionaire’s club didn’t come through her music.
While Rihanna’s music was what brought her into the public consciousness, it was her side-hustle that ended up earning her a massive fortune.
Fenty Beauty, which Rihanna launched in 2017 has since became the main focus for the popstar at perhaps the expense of her music.
In fact the last time Rihanna released music was back in 2016, when she came out with her eighth studio album Anti. And despite with news of an upcoming album release back in 2019, the album is yet to eventuate.
Instead Rihanna has been working hard on her beauty brand that was launched on the ethos that beauty should cater to all women and all skin tones.
Fenty entered a market where women of colour found it hard to . The brand capitalised on this, launching by selling 40 different shades across its product lines (it has now expanded this to 50).
In the first 40 days after its launch, . This sent shockwaves through the beauty industry. Somehow it had passed a number of established brands by that women of colour spent money on beauty products and wanted to be catered to.
It also kickstarted an awareness amongst bigger brands to be more inclusive, with many larger brands now in a market that Fenty has begun to dominate.
It did help of course that Rihanna had a large social media following to begin with. She used this to her advantage, placing product teasers and new product launches in front of her 103 million Instagram and 102 million Twitter followers, with much of her fan base also turning into her customer base.
But the other thing that Rihanna did, was to highlight and promote diverse bodies, faces and cultures. With a marketing campaign that fiercely focussed on underserved diverse women, Fenty ended up becoming the in YouTube history.
At the end of the day however, the products had to speak for themselves. And they did. There was an outpouring of love from women who were finally seeing themselves represented. The products were quickly selling out, being bought in droves by customers who couldn’t get enough of them. Many of the products won a number of . And then Time magazine called Fenty of 2017.
In 2018 Rihanna started a lingerie line, Savage x Fenty. Launching on the same ethos of representing underserved communities of women, the lingerie line marketed itself with an emphasis on body inclusivity and diversity. It also became a huge success. In an era where women were , Savage x Fenty stepped in to celebrate women being themselves.
Once again, more established brands were caught off-guard but the positive impact of Rihanna’s lingerie line was that US and UK the number of size-inclusive lingerie styles by 34 per cent.
Meanwhile, Rihanna has shown great business savvy by managing the rise of her company while also retaining a large chunk of it.
: “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.”
Rihanna hasn’t commented as yet about making it into the billionaire’s club. But as for her return to music, when she assured fans that she will never give up on her first vocation.
“Me the designer, me the woman who creates makeup and lingerie - it all started with music. It was my first pen pal–ship to the world. To cut that off is to cut my communication off. All of these other things flourish on top of that foundation.”
Saman Shad is a freelance writer. You can follow her on Twitter
