Rihanna’s estimated net worth surpasses that of Madonna, Céline Dion and Beyoncé. (Photo: Rihanna’s Instagram)

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Fourteen years after breaking into the music industry, smashing records and creating history along the way, Barbadian singer and entrepreneur Rihanna has become the world’s wealthiest female music, according to Forbes.

The business magazine has estimated the 31-year-old ‘Work’ singer’s worth at US$600 million, surpassing that of even Madonna (US$570 million), referred to as the Queen of Pop since the 1980s; Canada’s all-time best-selling artist Céline Dion ($450 million); and Beyoncé ($400 million).

But Rihanna’s music is not the only source of her wealth. Although she first became famous as a singer, the pop icon’s has evolved into a style icon and businesswoman, and her worth includes revenues from her fashion and beauty lines that have now seen her feature in Forbes’ 2019 ranking of the richest self-made female entrepreneurs and executives.

According to Forbes, the majority of her income comes from her partnership with LVMH, the French luxury goods company that owns the likes of Christian Dior, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. Just last month, Rihanna launched her fashion label Fenty – a new Paris-based clothing house that will make high-end clothes, shoes, accessories and jewellery –, becoming the first black woman to create an original brand with LVMH.

The LVMH partnership is the latest of the star’s business ventures, following on from  lingerie label Savage X Fenty, co-owned with Los Angeles-based online fashion firm TechStyle Fashion Group and launched last year; and her cosmetics brand co-owned with LVMH, Fenty Beauty, which was founded in 2017 and racked up a reported US$100 million in sales in its first few weeks and generated an estimated US$570 million in revenue last year, after only 15 months in business.

Rihanna is 37 overall on Forbes’ list of 80 richest self-made women, as measured by their net worth. Last year she made the magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Highest-Paid Entertainers, ranking at 84.

In a recent interview with the New York Times Style Magazine, Rihanna indicated she had no plans of slowing down.

“I never thought I’d make this much money, so a number is not going to stop me from working. I’m not being driven by money right now. Money is happening along the way, but I’m working out of what I love to do, what I’m passionate about. Work will change when my life changes in the future but an amount of money is not going to stop that,” she said.

  Rihanna