Patrick Mahomes has a $450 million contract with the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs, but the quarterback still is nowhere near as wealthy as this year’s halftime headliner, Rihanna.
Rihanna’s net worth is $1.4 billion, according to Forbes estimates, meaning she’ll be the richest person on the field this Sunday — and one of the the richest people to ever perform in the Super Bowl halftime show.
Rihanna, 34, may be most famous for her work as a musical artist, but the success of her cosmetics and skin-care company, Fenty Beauty, is what has catapulted her finances to stratospheric levels.
See also: LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan: Who is the GOAT when it comes to net worth?
She is the CEO of Fenty and part owner of the company, which is a brand of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey
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Fenty had over $550 million in revenue in 2020, and Forbes valued the company at more than $2.8 billion back in 2021.
A few other Super Bowl halftime performers may have been billionaires at some point in their lives, if not when they actually appeared on stage at the Super Bowl. Here’s a list:
- Sean “Diddy” Combs, who performed in 2004, was dubbed a billionaire years later by Forbes, thanks to the success of his alcohol brand, Cîroc.
- Paul McCartney performed in 2005 and became a billionaire a decade later, according to Forbes. The former Beatle grossed over $100 million from just one year of his solo tour in 2019, and he owns music-publishing copyrights to his songs as well as singer Buddy Holly’s.
- Dr. Dre performed in 2022 alongside other hip-hop artists. Dre’s music career, along with the sale of his headphone company Beats by Dre to Apple in 2014, catapulted him to billionaire status, he said after the deal was closed, although Forbes at times has estimated his net worth at $800 million.
Not included in the above list are bands that played in Super Bowl halftime shows whose members may have a combined net worth that exceeds $1 billion — such as U2, the Rolling Stones or the Who.
Her performance on Sunday won’t add to Rihanna’s net worth, because the NFL does not pay its Super Bowl halftime show performers.
Instead, with the game’s incredibly large viewing audience, the NFL promises the performing artist exposure. It covers the production costs of the show, as well as all travel expenses related to the performance.
This year, the halftime show is sponsored by Apple Inc.’s
AAPL,
Apple Music. Apple reportedly is paying $250 million as part of a five-year sponsorship.
Despite not being paid for the actual performance, artists typically see an uptick in people listening to their music on streaming platforms and an overall increase in interest in them.
Justin Timberlake’s 2018 performance led to his music sales rising 534% that same day, Lady Gaga’s digital catalog spiked 1,000% following her 2017 performance and Travis Scott’s concert fee doubled after his 2019 performance.
“I can’t believe I even said yes,” Rihanna said of performing at the Super Bowl. “It was one of those things that even when I announced it, I was like, ‘OK, I can’t take it back. Now it’s like, final.”
Rihanna has not released an album since “Anti” in 2016, and she recently had a child with fellow musical artist A$AP Rocky. She said during a pre-Super Bowl press conference on Thursday that she was unsure at first about agreeing to perform in this year’s halftime show. In 2019, she turned down an offer to perform.
“When I first got the call to do it again this year I was like, ‘Are you sure? I’m three months postpartum. Should I be making major decisions like this right now? I might regret this,’” Rihanna said. “When you become a mom, there’s something that happens where you feel like you can take on the world and can do anything. The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world. As scary as that was, because I haven’t been on stage in seven years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all. It’s important for me to do this this year. It’s important for representation. It’s important for my son to see that.”
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