Women account for just 13% of Forbes’ World Billionaires list. Of the 2,781 billionaires, 369, or 13.3%, are women. The current number of women billionaires is an increase from the previous number, which was 337 in 2023.
This means that they are richer than ever before. According to Forbes, the world’s richest women are collectively worth nearly $1.8 trillion, about $240 billion more than last year. And for the fourth consecutive year, L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is the world’s richest woman, with a net worth of $99.5 billion.
She first took the number one spot in 2019, two years after the death of her mother, Liliane Bettencourt. Her mother ranked as the richest woman in six of the years from 2006 to 2017. Per Forbes’ publication, Walmart founder Sam Walton’s only daughter and art devotee Alice Walton is the second richest woman in the world with a net worth of $72.3 billion.
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Although the publication ranked women in the world who have reached billionaire status, some women billionaires were too poor to be considered. As such, the top 10 list did not include any of the Black women billionaires in the U.S. below:
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is the richest black woman on earth, with an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion. In 2023, she was ranked 13th on Forbes’ latest ranking of the wealthiest self-made women in America.
According to Forbes, the media mogul made her money by reinvesting profits from her talk show and films like The Color Purple, Beloved, and Selma. Winfrey launched the cable channel OWN in 2011. Her 25.5% stake in the network is worth more than $65 million.
Rihanna
In 2022, the Barbados singer became a certified billionaire. Forbes recognized her as the youngest self-made billionaire woman in America, with a net worth of $1.4 billion.
Although the nine-time Grammy Award winner rose to fame through her music, the majority of her fortune comes from her Fenty Beauty business, while the rest comes from her stake in her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, worth an estimated $270 million, as well as her earnings from music and acting.
She founded Fenty Beauty in 2017 in her bid to create a cosmetic company that made “women everywhere feel included” in partnership with luxury goods company LVMH. The cosmetic line initially sold foundation shades and later expanded to include lipstick, lip gloss, body glitter, and more. In its first year of operation, Fenty Beauty generated more than $550 million. In 2019, Rihanna became the first black woman to create a clothing brand for LVMH called Fenty and also announced new high-end clothing, shoes, and accessories.
Aside from her cosmetic business, Rihanna has earned millions of dollars from endorsement deals from brands and companies like River Island, Mac, Armani, and Balmain. In 2014, she signed a $1 million endorsement deal to work as Puma’s creative director.
