Beyoncé is now a billionaire.
The “Cowboy Carter” artist has joined the company of husband Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and Rihanna as the fifth musician to reach this level of wealth status. And she is the 22nd entertainer to make the list.
Beyoncé’s personal wealth primarily comes from her music, though she has owned several businesses throughout her career, which include the hair care line Cécred and whiskey label Sir Davis, and the now-defunct athleisure brand Ivy Park, according to Forbes. Though her income mainly comes from touring and managing her catalog rights through Parkwood Entertainment.
This past summer, the “Cowboy Carter” tour became the highest-grossing country music tour ever, bringing in $400 million in ticket sales for 1.5 million attendees, and an additional $50 million in merchandise sales. Even while in her country music era, the tour solidified her status as the highest-grossing R&B artist to date, as well as the highest-grossing Black artist in history.
Since 2016, when she became the first female artist to headline an all-stadium tour, Beyoncé has mastered the formula for extravagant tours. These performances now account for more than three-quarters of an artist’s earnings, largely due to the decline in revenue from music sales caused by the rise of streaming. Her prior “Renaissance” tour in 2023 grossed almost $600 million.
As an artist 30 years into her career, the 44-year-old artist has built her finances “slowly over the years,” according to Forbes, which really began when she left Destiny’s Child to branch off as a solo artist, releasing her debut album in 2003, and stopped being managed by her father in 2010.
Forbes estimated that this year alone, Beyoncé made $148 million before taxes from a combination of touring, her music ownership, and sponsorship deals.
