Selena Gomez: From No Gas Money to Self-Made Billionaire

“I remember about seven times when our car stalled on the freeway because we ran out of gas money,” Gomez said. elle in 2012, recounting her time growing up in poverty with her then-teenage mother, Mandy Teefey.

“My mom gave up everything for me and had, like, three jobs,” Gomez said in a 2017 interview with It is! Entertainment.

Teefey, 16 at the time, gave birth to Gomez in 1992 in a “really tough neighborhood” in Grand Prairie, Texas. Five years later, she divorced her then-husband and raised Selena as a single mother while striving to make it as a stage actress.

As fate would have it, Gomez discovered her passion for acting after spending time on her mother’s theater sets, which later propelled her to stardom.

Teefey detailed her daughter’s early fascination with acting New York Times in 2017: “She went to one of my rehearsals with me and sat all over the place, not moving. On the way home, she was quiet and then said, “You know, Mom, it might be funnier if you did it this way.” And I thought, “Oh, no. He will become an actor.”

And she did just that.

At just 10 years old, Selena made her acting debut barney and friends, rose to fame five years later with the lead role in the Emmy Award-winning Disney series Wizards of Waverly Placewhich netted him around $3 million in total, according to Cosmopolitan. She then moved on to music as the leading lady of the pop band Selena Gomez and the scene before launching a successful solo career with her hit album Dance of the Starswhich ranked 1st.

Today, Gomez boasts an impressive resume: three studio albums, nine top-10 pop hits, 44 singles (half of which are platinum or gold), and two Grammy nominations.

Interestingly enough, acting and singing do not make up the majority of Gomez’s fortune.

Conformable Bloombergmusic tours only accounted for less than 5% of Gomez’s fortune, with album and record sales accounting for less than 2% – unlike her close friend Taylor Swift, who reached billionaire status in October 2023, mainly from music and his concerts.

“I’ve tried my best to create products that go beyond putting my name on something,” she said 102.7 KIISFM in a 2023 radio interview.

Of course, having the third most followed Instagram account on the planet helped.

With 424 million followers on the platform, just behind soccer stars Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, Gomez helped her brand’s marketing efforts by posting clips of herself wearing Rare Beauty makeup. With 14 product categories and 150 items at launch, the brand has quickly built a loyal following, especially for its viral liquid blush. In 2023, Rare Beauty achieved total sales of $350 million, of which $70 million was generated from its blush alone, reports Bloomberg.

Her social media influence has also helped her land multi-million dollar deals with major brands like Puma and Coach, earning her $30 million and $10 million respectively.

But that’s not all. The Come and get it The singer, who has been open about her struggles with bipolar disorder and depression, started her own mental health startup called Wondermind with her mother, which was valued at $100 million in 2022.

“She is a multifaceted businesswoman with various streams of income that contribute to her impressive net worth,” says Stacy Jones. Bloomberg.

But despite her success in business, Just murders in the building star (Hulu pays her $6 million per season) is most proud of her philanthropic mission to expand mental health services and education globally. She contributes 1% of her cosmetics sales to the Rare Impact Fund, which aims to raise $100 million by 2030.

to TIME 100 Summit in April, Gomez said, “I think we’ve been able to do something that, at least in cosmetics, no one has ever done. That makes me happy every night when I go to bed.”

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