Pop star, actress, and entrepreneur, Selena Gomez is officially in the billionaires’ club.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Gomez made her debut in the list at an estimated worth of US$1.3 billion (RM5.63 billion).
Unlike her friend Taylor Swift who has reached billionaire status largely from her music and touring, Gomez made her money from a mix of businesses that leverage her talent and hundreds of millions of social media followers.
The 32-year-old rose to fame from her humble beginnings as a 9-year-old as part of the cast of Barney & Friends before moving on to opportunities with Disney Channel and embarking on a music career.
Since then, she’s gone on to create her beauty brand and now stars in an Emmy-nominated Hulu show.
The bulk of Gomez’s wealth is tied to Rare Beauty Brands Inc., the makeup line she started five years ago and has become a hit with influencers and teens, apart from her brand partnerships, acting deals, and a mental-health startup.
Bloomberg’s wealth analysis considered the estimated value of her stake in Rare Beauty, her interest in Wondermind, the estimated value of her music album sales and properties, and earnings from streaming deals, brand partnerships, concert tickets, and acting.
The study assumes the lowest estimated value of her stakes in businesses and is based only on assets that could be confirmed or traced from publicly disclosed figures.
Despite earning her early millions from her acting, Gomez’s worth skyrocketed with her music career, first with the pop-rock band Selena Gomez & the Scene and then as a solo artist.
With three studio albums and 44 singles, she leveraged her fame on social media with 424 million followers, a number that only lags behind the likes of football legends Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the most popular person on Instagram.
Apart from her brand, numerous others signed her on for eye-watering deals such as Puma SE (a two-years-deal worth a reported RM 130 million in 2017) Coach in 2016 (RM43.3 million), and Louis Vuitton (RM43 million)
While she may be best known as a singer, her actual music-related income pales in comparison to her other sources of revenue.
Music tours only accounted for less than 5% of Gomez’s wealth, with album and record sales less than 2%. She hasn’t toured since 2016, when she abruptly canceled her Revival tour after 55 shows, citing mental health struggles. That still earned her RM130 million in ticket sales.
Most of Gomez’s fortune, roughly US$1.1 billion (RM4.7 billion), comes from her stake in Rare Beauty, which she has kept largely independent, with the only known investors in Nikki Eslami’s New Theory Ventures and CEO Scott Friedman, who previously led Nyx Cosmetics.
The Bloomberg analysis assumes Gomez holds a 51% majority interest based on her founding role in the company.
In March, Bloomberg reported that Gomez hired advisers to weigh selling Rare Beauty at a US$2 billion (RM8.66 billion) valuation though she later stated that she has no plans to sell.
The platform which includes mental-health tools, interviews, and a newsletter was valued at US$100 million (RM433 million) in 2022 with investments from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, and tennis icon Serena Williams’s venture fund, Serena Ventures.
Gomez is now focusing on her role as Mabel Mora on ‘Only Murders in the Building’, which co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short and started its fourth season on August 27.
She takes home at least US$6 million (RM26 million) per season from the show and is up for an Emmy award for lead actress in a comedy series later this month.
Singer Shares Life-changing Advice With Younger Self
Selena Gomez reflects on her time in the industry and wants to offer her younger self some advice.
The former Disney star dished out the advice she would give to her younger self in response to a fan’s question.
The ‘Lose You to Love Me’ singer shared some heartfelt words that struck a chord with her fans.
“Don’t be so hard on myself. I was very hard on myself. If the teacher scolded me for talking too much, I’d go home and think about it all day. If I had a crush on a boy and he asked a girl out in front of me, I’d be a wreck forever.”
Selena Gomez
“I was too hard on myself,” she added. “I didn’t think I was enough, or sometimes I didn’t think I fit in, and ultimately, you’re exactly who you are made to be.”
Selena first launched Rare Beauty in September 2020, promoting the brand exclusively through their official website and Sephora stores in North America.
