Selena Gomez is speaking out about becoming a billionaire after the success of her Rare Beauty brand.
“I’m very grateful,” Gomez, 32, told Entertainment Tonight in an interview on Monday, September 30. “I personally think it’s distasteful to talk about money. But I really am giving all the credit to the people who buy the products. They’re the ones that made this dream of mine come true. So I’m really, really honored and just happy.”
Gomez reached billionaire status in early September, when she was ranked on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the very first time. Bloomberg reported her current net worth as $1.3 billion and cited her many lucrative ventures as an “actress, singer and entrepreneur” for helping her reach the impressive milestone.
The Only Murders in the Building star founded Rare Beauty four years ago and today the company accounts for the “vast bulk of Gomez’s wealth,” according to the outlet. But it’s her ability to diversify into avenues like her role producing TV series — including October’s Wizards of Waverly Place reboot — that will help prolong her career as a public figure.
Bloomberg compared Gomez’s success to that of her close friend Taylor Swift, who became a billionaire almost exclusively from selling and touring her own music. While Gomez has embarked on concert tours in the past, she made her fortune in areas beyond her singing career.
Earlier this year, Gomez denied rumors that she was considering a sale of Rare Beauty once it reached a $2 billion valuation. “I don’t have any plans on that, genuinely,” she told Time magazine at the time, adding, “I will admit it overwhelms me sometimes. I have this weird thing in my head where if I focus on the numbers, I’ll lose whatever it is that made Rare Beauty Rare Beauty.”
She said, “I never wanted it to be about making a lot of money and that’s it.”
The mogul, meanwhile, is not giving up her movie career. Her musical crime film, Emilia Perez, has generated early Oscar buzz since winning the Cannes Film Festival’s Jury Prize and the Best Actress award for Gomez and costars Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón and Adriana Paz.
The drama centers around lawyer Rita (Saldaña) who receives an offer to help cartel boss Juan Del Monte, a.k.a. Manitas, retire from the business, disappear and become a woman. Following gender reassignment surgery, titular character Emilia Perez (Gascón) reaches out to Rita again — this time for help reuniting with her wife (Gomez).
“I was very nervous because this is a project that is unlike anything I’ve ever done before,” Gomez told The Hollywood Reporter in May. “Even though I have such a small part, it’s such a big and special project that I feel so lucky that I was able to be a part of it.”
Gomez also recalled the audition process, where she said she “acted insane.” She told the outlet, “[Director Jacques Audiard] wanted me to perform one of the numbers and I just surrendered and completely gave myself. I was, like, ‘Well, at least I could walk away and say that I did my best.’ When he asked me to be a part of it, I was so nervous but also so excited.”
