Beyoncé, one of the best-selling music artists of all time, has reached billionaire status, according to Forbes.
Forbes said that Beyoncé joins an elite group of celebrities who recently crossed the three-comma threshold and becomes just the fifth musician, joining her husband, Jay-Z, as well as Swift, Bruce Springsteen and Rihanna.
According to Forbes, Beyoncé began building her business empire in earnest in 2010, when she founded Parkwood Entertainment and brought control of nearly every aspect of her career in-house.
The company manages her career and produces all of her music, documentaries and concerts, fronting most of the production costs in order to capture more of the back-end economics.
Beyoncé rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time.
Her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love (2003), became one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century.
After Destiny’s Child disbanded in 2005, Beyoncé released the funk-imbued B’Day (2006) and starred in the drama film Dreamgirls (2006). Her marriage to rapper Jay-Z and portrayal of Etta James in the biopic Cadillac Records (2008) influenced her pop-oriented double album I Am… Sasha Fierce (2008).
Through the 2000s, Beyoncé garnered the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles “Crazy in Love”, “Baby Boy”, “Check on It”, “Irreplaceable”, and “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”.
