Pop princess and style icon Rihanna has joined the ranks of Britain’s super rich, making her debut in this year’s The Sunday Times Rich List, to be published on Sunday (May 17).
The 136-page special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine reveals the wealth of the 1,000 richest people in Britain in its 32nd annual edition.
The richest musicians
Musicians Rank
2020 Name 2020 wealth Wealth increase/decrease
1 Lord Lloyd-Webber £800m Down £20m
2 Sir Paul McCartney £800m Up £50m
3 Rihanna £468m New
4 Sir Elton John £360m Up £40m
5 Sir Mick Jagger £285m Up £10m
6 Olivia and Dhani Harrison £270m Up £20m
7 Keith Richards £270m Up £10m
8 Sir Ringo Starr £260m Up £20m
9 Michael Flatley £206m Up £2m
10 Ed Sheeran £200m Up £40m
11 Sir Rod Stewart £200m Up £10m
12 Sting £200m No change
13 Brian May £190m Up £30m
14 Roger Waters £190m No change
15 Robbie Williams £185m Up £10m
16 Calvin Harris £180m Up £15m
17 Eric Clapton £175m No change
18 Sir Tom Jones £170m Up £5m
19 Roger Taylor £170m Up £15m
20 Charlie Watts £165m Up £10m
21 Sir Tim Rice £155m Up £2m
22 Adele £150m No change
23 Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne £150m No change
24 Phil Collins £140m Up £10m
25 John Deacon £140m Up £10m
26 Jimmy Page £127m Up £2m
27 David Gilmour £116m No change
28 Nick Mason £110m Up £5
29 Chris Martin £105m Up £3m
30 Robert Plant £102m Down £3m
31 Mary Austin £95m Up £6m
32 Ronnie Wood £95m Up £10m
33 Guy Berryman £92m Up £2m
34 Jonny Buckland £92m Up £2m
35 Will Champion £92m Up £2m
36 Pete Townshend and Rachel Fuller £84m Up £1m
37 Gary Barlow £82m Up £1m
38 Mark Knopfler £76m Up £1m
39 Sir Barry Gibb £75m No change
40 Engelbert Humperdinck £73m New
Wealthiest Young Musicians
Musicians Rank
2020 Name 2020 wealth Wealth increase/decrease
1 Ed Sheeran £200m Up £40m
2 Harry Styles £63m Up £5m
3 Niall Horan £50m Up £1m
4 Little Mix £48m Up £3m
5 Louis Tomlinson £45m Up £1m
6 Liam Payne £44m Up £2m
7 Zayn Malik £36m No change
8 Sam Smith £33m Up £1m
9 Rita Ora £20m Up £2m
10 Stormzy £20m Up £4m
11 George Ezra £16m New
12 Dua Lipa £16m New
Barbados-born Rihanna is also an eye-catching new entry in third place on today’s Musicians Rich List, the traditional warm up act to the definitive guide to UK wealth.
Now based in London, Rihanna makes her debut in this year’s ranking with a fortune of £468m - a figure powered by the success of her Fenty cosmetics brand and a coterie of other commercial interests.
The original “bad gal” has made most of her wealth by partnering with LVMH, the French luxury goods brand. Their cosmetics brand, launched in 2017, generated $570m in its first 15 months. It is valued at $3bn, making Rihanna’s reported 15% stake worth £351.6m. There is also Savage X Fenty, her lingerie line — not to mention eight hit albums – to account for her fortune.
The 32-year-old singer joins the rankings including members of Queen, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as well as the kings of the West End musicals, including Lord Lloyd-Webber and Sir Cameron Mackintosh.
Sir Paul McCartney and Lloyd-Webber share the top spot in today’s music Rich List, each having wealth estimated at £800m.
The former Beatle’s latest hit is Hey Grandude!, his first children’s book. The tale topped the New York Times bestsellers chart in 2019. With an enduring appeal that spans generations, 29 McCartney concerts last year took more than $100m at the box office. His latest album, Egypt Station, was his first to debut at No 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
The Rich List’s compilers calculate that the Covid-19 shutdown of the West End will hit Lord Lloyd-Webber by at least £20m.
The Kensington-born composer has pushed back the West End opening of his musical Cinderella until October and stands to lose millions from the closure of his theatres in London’s West End and on Broadway.
Lloyd-Webber's LW Theatres showed assets of £63m in 2018-19, with the separate Really Useful Group Investments making profits of £7m on turnover of £61.4m.
The composer is airing some of his famous musicals on YouTube during the lockdown, launching a channel called The Show Must Go On last month.
Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List, said: “Rihanna typifies the seismic change we’ve seen in the Rich List in recent years. Once dominated by inherited wealth, the bulk of our 1,000 entries are now self-made people with modest and even troubled starts in life who are driven to work exceptionally hard.
“Still only 32, if Rihanna remains based in the UK she could well pip Sir Paul McCartney and Lord Lloyd-Webber to be The Sunday Times Rich List’s first billionaire musician.
“Touring remains the big earner for many of the stadium-filling acts on our musicians’ list. But the Covid outbreak has wrecked concert plans and so we expect the wealth of many of these musicians will flatline over the coming year.
“There’s no doubt that for this year at least the wealth of the musicians has held up better than many other ultra-high net worth individuals - especially those with wealth determined by the stock market.”
Ed Sheeran ranks first in the young musicians (aged 30 or under) list once again with another £40m added to his overall wealth. He has earned more than £600m and sold nine million tickets.
The 255-gig tour Sheeran completed last August is said to be the highest-grossing in history. It capped a decade in which Shape of You was the world’s most streamed track, with 2.4 billion plays on Spotify. The prolific songsmith has set himself the task of writing a tune before lunch every day of the lockdown. He also donated £1m to local charities.
