Rare Beauty is sold as Selena Gomez’s company, and that is the accurate shorthand. What is less clear is the arithmetic behind it. The number that turned Gomez into a billionaire on a widely cited ranking is an assumption about how much of her company she holds, and the company has never confirmed it.
What the public record establishes
| Claim | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Gomez holds a 51% majority interest, worth more than $1.1 billion | Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as reported by Cosmetics Business (Sept. 9, 2024) | Bloomberg’s estimate |
| 2023 revenue of $350 million | Bloomberg, as reported by Cosmetics Business | Bloomberg’s figure, not a company filing |
| Advisers hired to weigh offers for a business valued at about $2 billion | Bloomberg (March 18, 2024), as linked and cited by Retail Dive | Reported, not confirmed by the company |
| Sale process put on hold | Axios (September 2024), as cited by Retail Dive (March 12, 2025) | Reported |
| “We haven’t made any decisions about any of that at all” | CEO Scott Friedman to WWD, via TheIndustry.beauty (Aug. 4, 2025) | On the record |
| Outside shareholders and their stakes | None found | Not disclosed |
Cosmetics Business, summarizing Bloomberg’s ranking, says Gomez’s total fortune was put at $1.3 billion, mostly from Rare Beauty. Its article names no outside investors. This piece did not find one in any source it opened either, so it makes no claim about who holds the remaining shares.
The sale that did not happen
Bloomberg reported in March 2024 that Gomez had hired advisers to weigh offers for Rare Beauty at a valuation near $2 billion. Rare Beauty did not confirm it. Marketing Dive’s Peter Adams wrote in March 2025 that the company had “mulled a sale for up to $2 billion” before pausing the process, attributing the pause to Axios.
Gomez has publicly pushed back. Cosmetics Business quotes her telling Time, “I don’t have any plans on that, genuinely.” In August 2025, WWD, as relayed by TheIndustry.beauty, quoted CEO Scott Friedman saying “The rumours that have been out there have not been accurate. We haven’t made any decisions about any of that at all.” Gomez told WWD in the same coverage that the future for Rare “is just the fact that we want to continue to create products.”
Compare that with the celebrity exits that did close. George Clooney’s Casamigos went to Diageo and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty sits in a joint venture with LVMH. Rare Beauty, by contrast, has produced no transaction that would force anyone to publish a number.
Distribution is the live signal
The clearest recent move is commercial. In a January 5, 2026 press release, Rare Beauty said it would launch in more than 1,500 Ulta Beauty stores and on Ulta.com starting February 1, 2026, which the release calls its first retail expansion since its 2020 launch. The release carries no sales, ownership or investor information, and 1% of Rare Beauty sales go to the Rare Impact Fund. Expansion into a second major retailer matters to ownership questions because it is the kind of growth that raises a brand’s value, and with it the dollar worth of any stake. It does not, on its own, change who owns what.
The takeaway
When a ranking says a celebrity founder is worth a specific number, ask where the percentage came from. For Rare Beauty, the 51% is Bloomberg’s working assumption about a founder-controlled company, applied to a valuation that was itself floated in a sale process that has not produced a deal. Both may be reasonable. Neither is a disclosure. Until Rare Beauty sells, files or publishes its cap table, Selena Gomez’s exact stake, and everyone else’s, remain unknown.
More ownership breakdowns: SKIMS, Kylie Cosmetics and Rhode.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Rare Beauty? Selena Gomez founded Rare Beauty and is described as its owner, and Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index estimates she holds a 51% majority interest. That percentage is Bloomberg’s estimate; the company has not published an ownership breakdown, and this piece found no filing naming other shareholders.
How much of Rare Beauty does Selena Gomez own? Bloomberg estimates 51%, valuing the stake at more than $1.1 billion as of September 2024, per Cosmetics Business. It is a modelled figure, not a company disclosure.
Did Selena Gomez sell Rare Beauty? No sale has been reported in the sources reviewed. Bloomberg reported in March 2024 that she had hired advisers to weigh offers; the process was reported on hold in September 2024, and in August 2025 CEO Scott Friedman said no decisions had been made.
Is Rare Beauty available at Ulta? Yes. Rare Beauty announced on January 5, 2026 that it would launch in more than 1,500 Ulta Beauty stores and on Ulta.com from February 1, 2026, which the release describes as its first retail expansion since its 2020 launch.
