Happy Birthday Rihanna! 15 Times The ‘Bad Gal’ Proved Her Fashion Icon Status

Last Updated: 20 February 2021

As Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman, Robyn Rihanna Fenty turns 33 today, she has very good reasons to celebrate “bigly.” Just a few days ago, her brand, Savage x Fenty, was

valued at $1 billion. But Rihanna did not become a household name overnight.

She’s worked very hard to achieve so much success and, according to Forbes, is now the richest female musician.

This is how Rihanna rose to the top.

Early life and career

Born February 20, 1988 in Saint Michael, Barbados, “Badgalriri,” as she calls herself on Instagram hasn’t always had a fairytale life. She’s revealed stories of several forms abuse on the part of her dad, with Rihanna having to defend her mom on several occasions. This led her to develop serious headaches which only got better following her parents’ divorce when she was 14.

Growing up, the superstar always loved music and was surrounded by reggae sounds. By 2003, she formed a music trio with two of her classmates. Rihanna was discovered in her home country by American record producer Evan Rogers. When a recording of hers reached rapper and producer Jay-Z, he smelled the seed of a star and soon after signed her to Def Jam, where he had recently been appointed president and CEO. By the summer of 2005, Rihanna’s first single, “Pon De Replay” was an instantaneous hit that also accelerated the sales of her first studio album, Music of the Sun.

In April 2006, her second album, A Girl Like Me, was released, ranking in the top 10 in a dozen countries and earning her the 2006 “Female Artist” of the year at the Billboard Music Awards. This was followed by the album Good Girl Gone Bad in June 2007. The album was once again a huge success with eight million copies sold worldwide. It was the second best-selling album in 2008 in the United States and remained No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks.

Her first three albums were followed by even more successful studio album releases with her latest and eight album, Antireleased in January 2016.

Among several awards, Rihanna is noted as the artist with the most number 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. She is also the one who took the least time to land eleven number-one titles on the Billboard Hot 100. On May 8, 2011, the singer uploaded Where Have You Been and set a new record, with 4.7 million views in 24 hours.

Businesses and Net Worth

With an estimated net worth of $600 million, Rihanna has been reported as the richest female musician by Forbes––but music is not the only source of her wealth. In early 2011, she launched her first fragrance, Reb’l Fleur. Six years later, her beauty industry takeover would fully materialize as she launched her beauty brand, Fenty Beauty. The brand made a whopping $100 million in its first few weeks and a total of $570 million in its first 15 months. The launch of Fenty Beauty shook up the industry and had people talking for weeks because Rihanna did what no other beauty brand had done before—offering 40 shades of foundation, setting her apart from competitors who only put out a limited range of foundation hues that failed to cater to much darker skin tones.

Not surprisingly, Rihanna didn’t stop with Fenty Beauty. Her Savage X Fenty lingerie line was recently valued at $1 billion. She went on to launch Fenty Skin which offers skincare products. There are talks that she plans on releasing a cookbook and more. We now know for sure that RiRi likes to “work, work, work.”

But business hasn’t been all a bed of roses for the superstar. Launching her fashion brand Fenty in May 2019, Rihanna created a sub-company with LVMH, the French luxury fashion group. However, last week, the partners announced that Fenty Fashion House has been put on hold till further notice.

Also a notable philanthropist, Rihanna is clearly multifaceted and open to trying every meaningful opportunity that comes her way. In addition to music, beauty and fashion, she has acted in various shows and movies over the years, including “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” “Bates Motel” and “Ocean’s 8.” She also invests in real estate, frequently buying properties and flipping them sometime later for a tidy profit.

In 2012, she founded the Clara Lionel Foundation in honor of her grandparent Clara and Lionel Braithwaite. The foundation supports and funds groundbreaking and effective education and emergency response programs around the world.

Awards

Throughout her career, Rihanna has received numerous awards and honors, including 9 Grammy Awards, 12 Billboard Music Awards, 13 American Music Awards, 8 People’s Choice Awards, among others. In 2013, she received the “Icon Award” at the American Music Award and received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. She holds six Guinness World Records.

Rihanna has accumulated 14 No. 1 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for the third most No. 1 songs in the chart’s history. She has been named the top Mainstream Top 40 chart artist of the past twenty years by Billboard; she ranks first with most entries (36), most top tens (23), and most No. 1 songs (10). She has also earned over 30 top-ten songs in the UK and Australia, making her the only artist in the 21st century to achieve this feat so far.

Her Style Rihanna birthday

Rihanna also rules the fashion world in more ways than one. In April 2011, Rihanna posed for the American edition of Vogue magazine, becoming the third black woman in history to make the coveted cover (after Naomi Campbell and Halle Berry). She has since been on the cover of over 25 Vogue editions along with several other magazine covers.

When it comes to her personal style, the pop star is an unapologetic risk-taker. Her fearless and no-hold back approach to fashion is one that we could only dream of emulating, as mere mortals. She is as much a fashion killer as she is a musical hitmaker. Riri can make anything look good and that’s a fact! Rihanna birthday style.

To celebrate her birthday we’ve curated 15 of her best red carpet and street style looks that were bold, elegant, sexy, and absolutely Rave-worthy!

Happy Birthday, Rihanna!