Picture Courtesy : ebony.com
Ace singer Rihanna has been named as the “World’s Richest Female Musician” by the Forbes magazine with an estimated fortune of $600 million with the bulk of that coming from her Fenty beauty range.
She’s overtaken Madonna and Beyonce, who previously topped the list, the BBC reported.
you could be forgiven for forgetting Rihanna even makes music – her last studio album “Anti” came out in 2016.
Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the US in 2005, when she signed with Def Jam Recordings to pursue a music career. She earned significant recognition following the release of her first two studio albums Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl like Me (2006), both of which were influenced by Caribbean music and peaked within the top ten of the US Billboard 200 chart.
Rihanna’s third studio album, Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), incorporated more elements of dance-pop and catapulted her to greater stardom, establishing her status as a sex symbol and a leading figure in the music industry.
Its international chart-topping single “Umbrella” earned Rihanna her first Grammy Award, winning Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
However, the 31-year-old has been putting her efforts into her beauty, lingerie and clothing ranges off- late.
Rihanna – real name Robyn Rihanna Fenty – launched Fenty Beauty in September 2017 and it’s estimated it racked up sales of $100 million in its first few weeks. The Forbes estimates that the company generated $570 million last year.
Experts say Rihanna’s invested her money wisely.
“Globally the entire beauty industry is worth $480 billion – in 2018 the UK market was valued at $17 billion,” said Hannah Symons, Global Beauty Manager at Euromonitor International.
Hannah’s job is to track the growth of the beauty industry – looking for trends.
“Rihanna’s success clearly doesn’t come off the back of the music although that’s how she initially gained fame.
“It’s all about her relevance and how she resonates with customers online. She’s very connected to her fans through social media and she’s always updating them on the newest products and things like launch dates,” Hannah added.
As well as her beauty range, Rihanna also has a lingerie line and recently made history by becoming the first woman to have a clothing range with French company Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH).
Hannah thinks part of Rihanna’s success is she’s appealing to a very wide audience.
“A lot of the people buying her products are not people who were buying her music. Rihanna has been around for 15 years but the people buying her products are aged 16-19, so wouldn’t have been around when she started making music.
