Celebrity shortfalls

There are two female singers who are billionaires, namely, Taylor Swift and Rihanna. Both are in Forbes’ list of 2024 celebrity billionaires with fortunes of $1.1 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively.

A new addition to the exclusive richest women singers club is Selena Gomez. Like Rihanna, Gomez’s fortune grew because of her cosmetics business. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 34-year-old’s net worth of $1.3 billion is based on the value of her company Rare Beauty which she put up in 2020.

Rare Beauty’s lucrative market is the hundreds of millions of people who follow Gomez’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. They are captured patrons of Rare Beauty brand mascara, liquid blush, eye brightener and other beauty products.

Adding to Gomez’s wealth are her earnings from endorsements, concert tours, album sales, acting gigs, streaming royalties and real estate holdings, according to Bloomberg News.

Other rich women celebrities are striving to reach the ranks of billionaires but face impediments.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s beauty and wellness business, Goop, was established years ahead of Gomez’s but reportedly encountered poor sales of its sexual wellness products. Consequently, the company recently announced an 18-percent cut in its workforce as a cost-cutting measure, New York Post reports.

Paltrow will focus on Goop’s beauty, fashion and food businesses to sustain its 40-percent increase in beauty products revenues last year.

Meanwhile, “Waka Waka” singer Shakira, one of the wealthiest Latina celebrities, haggled for a $7.6-million settlement of the back taxes she owed the Spanish government.

By agreeing in November to pay that amount out of the $15.8 million in taxes being charged her for living in Spain from 2012 to 2014, the 47-year-old Grammy winner avoided going to jail.

The Colombian singer told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that she paid the taxes that she had disputed in a Spanish court for five years because she wanted peace of mind for herself and her two sons with retired Barcelona football club player Gerard Pique from whom she had been separated since 2022.