Dear Gossips, 

The Sunday Times released their Rich List this week and Rihanna came in at #3 with an estimated fortune of £468 million which shouldn’t be news, really, since last year Forbes reported that she’s the world’s wealthiest female musician. You wouldn’t know it from the headlines over in England though as they’re either describing it as a surprise or wondering how she got here. 

 

"She somewhat caught us by surprise," says Robert Watts, who compiles The Sunday Times' annual list.

"Very few people knew she was living in the UK until last summer. Now she's well placed to be the first musician to reach billionaire status in the UK," he tells the BBC.”

The only people ahead of Rihanna on the Sunday Times list this year are Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Paul McCartney, two men who’ve been at it a lot longer. Rihanna’s also the only female entertainer on the list and the only person of colour on the list. Not that that’s a surprise either but, you know, that may be why it’s such a surprise – over in England, with all that aristocracy and nobility, the people who typically end up on these kinds of lists don’t look like Rihanna. Then again, these days, those people prefer to remain invisible so that they can continue protecting their wealth and resisting change in secret. As an aside, The Guardian had a great piece back in 2017 about “How the Aristocracy Preserved Their Power”. It tells you a lot about British society and the privileges that the titled ones have exploited over centuries to keep themselves where they are and push overs down at the same time. 

That, obviously, is never going to be what Rihanna’s all about. Rihanna inherited nothing. She’s on the list after just 15 years or so in the business, at the age of 32, because she’s been working her ass off this whole time. She is one of the most successful performers of the last couple of decades. And she built a fashion empire. Her latest release – the Fenty Off Record sunglasses: 

 

If I could, I would get them in green or pink. But there are a lot of people in the comments who don’t care about the shades, they want the album. Hilariously when one of them asks her about it, WHERE’S THE ALBUM, Rihanna replied: 

“I lost it.”

I mean, I’m not going to say that I’m not waiting for it either because I am, but the woman is out here leapfrogging rich people on the rich list in England and standing alone without peers and assisting with COVID-19 relief through her foundation and “trying to save the world”. Let her live!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey