Taylor Swift can officially call herself a billionaire, Bernard Arnault is the richest person in the world

The American singer Taylor Swift can now call herself a billionaire. She is the first artist to achieve this status solely thanks to her music, according to the magazine Forbes.

The 34-year-old pop singer has currently earned $1.1 billion (875 million euros), based on income from her Eras Tour and the value of her music catalog. “Swift is the first musician to reach ten-figure status based solely on her songs and performances,” Forbes said.

Previously, Rihanna and Jay-Z also passed the 1 billion dollar mark, but they did not only owe this to their music. Rihanna achieved the status through her beauty brand, Jay-Z through his art collection and shares in companies.

According to Forbes Swift owes about $500 million of her wealth to royalties and tours, a similar amount she gets from her musical work. Another $125 million comes from her real estate.

Bernard Arnault

The richest person in the world is French Bernard Arnault, owner of the luxury brand LVMH, with a fortune of approximately $233 billion. Tesla, SpaceX and X boss Elon Musk is in second place with $195 billion. The top five is completed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (194 billion), Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg (177 billion) and Oracle founder Larry Ellison (141 billion).

The first Belgian on the honors list is in place 298. It is Eric Wittouck, who became rich as a shareholder of Tiense Suiker. According to Forbes, he owns around $8.5 billion.