Taylor Swift’s music career continues to be incredibly lucrative. On Saturday, Oct. 5, Forbes updated the singer’s net worth, now estimating it to be $1.6 billion.
This development comes after the massive success of Swift’s worldwide record-breaking Eras Tour over the past year and a half. The tour is set to end in December. Forbes estimates that so far during 2024, Swift, 34, has grossed $1.15 billion before taxes and fees, with pretax earnings of $400 million.
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She utilized the popularity of her tour, reaching even more fans through releasing her concert movie, which is available to stream via Disney+. Swift bypassed studios and streamers for the film’s initial release, making a partnership with AMC, giving the theater chain its highest single-day ticket sales in history.
In addition to the Eras Tour, Swift’s 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, also debuted in April and became the first album in Spotify’s history to reach 300 million streams in a day.It broke multiple other records, including single-day Spotify album streams, single-week vinyl sales, and biggest streaming week of all time.
Read More: As Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Hits One Year, Let’s Take a Look at Its Staggering Numbers
In 2023, Swift also earned herself the title of TIME’s Person of the Year. She told TIME that she sees the monetary success of herself and fellow billionaire Beyoncé—and female artists in general—as an inflection point in the industry.
“What has existed since the dawn of time? A patriarchal society. What fuels a patriarchal society? Money, flow of revenue, the economy,” Swift said. “So actually, if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”
Swift’s monetary rise also comes after she has spent the past few years re-recording and re-releasing “Taylor’s Version” renditions of her former albums. This was prompted after Scooter Braun—a former heavyweight music manager—acquired Swift’s back catalog of music in 2019 after he acquired the Big Machine Label Group and all of its recorded music assets.
At the time, Swift said of the acquisition: “This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept.” Braun then sold Swift’s Big Machine masters to Shamrock Capital in 2020. So far, Swift has re-released the albums Fearless (Taylor’s Version), Red (Taylor’s Version), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), and 1989 (Taylor’s Version), for which she maintains the rights.
Swift’s wealth breakdown differs from other celebrities in her sphere; she is the first musician to make the status of billionaire primarily on her songs and performances, according to Forbes. By comparison, Selena Gomez—who was recently named on Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index—made the majority, roughly 81%, of her wealth through her cosmetics brand Rare Beauty. Music tours contributed to less than 5% of Gomez’s fortune, with album and record sales delivering less than 2%, according to the Bloomberg report. Similarly, singer Rihanna has an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion, which is due to the success of her popular cosmetics line Fenty Beauty, according to Forbes.