← Good Bad Billionaire
Good Bad Billionaire
Beyoncé: The business of Queen B
00:44:37
How Beyoncé went from talent show tween to music mogul
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Transcript225 lines
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those $5 roses at a gas station? Or a secondhand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes? Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com broadcast that's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.
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Enjoy the sunshine with sales on grill ready favorites from Whole Foods Market. Take cookouts to sizzling new heights with their marinated salmon and Maiden House marinated beef and chicken. And entertain with low priced 365 brand chips and dips like hummus and guacamole. And sweeten every party with brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Remember to pack the cooler with probiotic sodas. Sparkling waters and more summer savings await you at Whole Foods Market. A young girl, just nine years old, sweats under the sweltering Texas sun. She is running. Her tiny feet are pounding the pavement along the edge of the Bayou river.
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Five other girls trail behind her. They're all singing at the top of their lungs, harmonizing as they go. But none of the girls are hitting the notes quite like our lead because
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this little girl is Beyonce and she will leave everyone in the dust on her journey to becoming a billionaire.
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Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money.
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We take them from zero to their first million and then from a million onto a billion.
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I'm Simon Jack, the BBC's business editor.
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And I'm Zing Singh. I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
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And this week probably one of the top cultural figures of the 21st century.
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Oh yeah, and probably the 20th century as well. I mean we are starting this season with a bang.
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Have you seen her life?
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I've seen her life. I've actually seen her life three times and I was trying to. I was trying to count how much money I've spent on Beyonce in the last 15 years. I reckon probably almost a grand. A thousand pounds, seeing her live.
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Because tickets don't come cheap, do they? And that is one of the reasons that in 2025, Beyonce was declared a billionaire worth exactly $1 billion.
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From the very beginning, Beyonce has embodied professionalism, perfection, power. I mean, you just need to listen to her voice to know that.
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And capitalism, let's not forget about that. Ambition, materialism, capitalism, all being pretty overt in some of her lyrics from her first hit with Destiny's Child. Bills, Bills, bills.
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It's a tune.
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Okay. To declaring herself. And I like this quote, a black Bill Gates in the making on 2016's lemonade.
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Yes, you can listen to the Bill Gates episode to decide if she really is the black Bill Gates. But Beyonce is the CEO of what she calls, and I love this, her multi purpose, badass conglomerate. But really, this is a story about an artist who made money from making
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music, which is pretty rare. And I like the multipurpose badass conglomerate. Remember Jay Z, who will feature in this story for obvious reasons. He said, I'm not a businessman, I'm a business comma man.
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So what does it take to make a billion and become queen bee? Let's travel back to find out.
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Yes. Beyonce Knowles was born in 1981 in Houston, Texas, in the USA. Her father, Matthew, worked at Xerox selling medical equipment. Her mother, Tina, owned a hair salon that, according to Matthew, made them their first million dollars before Beyonce was even born. And she said, I went to private school. We had a very nice house. We had cars, we had a housekeeper. You can actually Google her family home. It's pretty nice. Grand looking, white house, 5,000 square feet, four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a swimming pool. So nice.
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C
Yeah. So Beyonce grew up comfortable. And everyone describes her when she was growing up as someone who was quiet, who was shy. Her parents actually put Beyonce in a dance class because she was too shy. And the story goes is that when Beyonce was seven, her dance teacher, a woman called Dalet, noticed that she could sing and said, it blew me away. I told her to sing again. And because she was very shy, I promised her a dollar and she sang it again. Interesting incentive for Beyonce there. And Dalet then entered Beyonce into a talent show. And when she got up, she absolutely command. And her mum, Tina, who will come up again in the story, says it was something that happened on that stage I had never seen before. Yeah, Beyonce won first class. She Took home a trophy, $100. So that was the beginning of her journey.
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Isn't it funny? Cause I remember one of our other billionaires, the minute they took the stage, somebody saw something, Rihanna, remember that one.
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Exactly.
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And said, wow, there's something special there. So from then on, singing and dancing became part of her central to her life. According to Daletta, Beyonce's parents worked pretty hard developing her. They got her a vocal coach with Matthew and Tina's permission. Dalezi, she was dragging her all over town to dance competitions and pageants and stuff like that. Age 9, she moved schools to Parker elementary, which is kind of specialized in music and dance. And her younger sister Solange said Beyonce practiced in her bedroom over and over and over again. And when everyone said, okay, that's good, we've got it, she would say, no, I want to do it again. So very driven perfectionism.
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Exactly. So you might ask yourself, where did this work ethic come from? Beyonce credits her parents. She said both were entrepreneurs. I watched them struggle working 18 hour days. They taught me that nothing worth having comes easily. And in particular, her dad, Matthew Knowles, stressed discipline. He was really tough on her. But Beyonce has said, I wasn't doing this because I didn't have a choice or to support the family. Important for child entertainers. All because I had to get out of a bad situation. I was just determined this is what I wanted to do so bad.
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Okay, so she was making a name for herself in the local community, winning competitions. One day in the hair salon, two local mothers, Denise and Deborah, approached the Knowles and they said, listen, we want to form a young version of En Vogue 1990. We're out here. Groups were big at the time. There was a gap in the market for a younger version of that. So that Beyonce became the first member of a band called Girls Time, spelled T Y M E. I like that. Everything has to be kind of slightly off because it was en vogue. NSync girl time with a Y. Exactly. So we put a team in place. A financial backer, producer, songwriter, they trialed 30 girls. Six were finally selected for the band. They had intense rehearsals. They practiced nearly every day for months at their family home, Beyonce's family home. The girls did a regular boot camp, as per our opening scene, if you remember, running down the river by the bayou.
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And they traveled to the west coast to record their first record. But tensions were already showing. So those involved had said that Beyonce's dad, Matthew, was trying to position her as the lead. Although Matthew obviously disputes this portrayal of himself. It's Worth noting that there were a lot of people involved at this point, all of whom were developing girls time for months on end. That's not particularly unusual when it comes to girl brands or boy bands. It's estimated that back then this would have cost around a hundred thousand dollars because it is expensive. You're working with a lot of people. So the band needed to sign a deal, but their producer was shopping the record around major labels for about a year. They had no success. And their last hope was a popular TV talent show called Star Search. Quite similar to, I guess, X Factor or Pop Idol.
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Yeah, like an early version of that. At the time, it was the largest national talent show. Child stars who'd been on Star Search included some big names, actually. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera. They practiced for over a month. They got tight, they got polished. They were up against an adult male rock band called Skeleton Crew. I can sort of picture that band. And Beyonce said, I hadn't even thought about imagining losing as a possibility.
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But lose they did. And this whole process of losing Starsearch caused also a deep rift within the band. Ashley left. Soon the producers, songwriters also parted ways. And this left the stage clear for Mattho Niles. He quit his job to manage the band full time. This is a guy who's probably pretty high up and he just goes, I'm just gonna quit to manage my daughter's band.
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Well, they must have been absolutely convinced that they had a star on their hands because as you say, it's not like this is their only hope. They had a very comfortable life. They both had good jobs. And to pack it in, particularly after losing this, you know, at that point you'd say, oh, well, nice try, it's not gonna be. But they doubled down on this. And so more girls left. They brought another. The band changed its name. And one former member, Latavia, said Matthew did not mince his words. She said, and it can be tough to take that kind of criticism when you are a little girl. We would try not to let it break us. Shades of like the Jackson 5 almost in this. Isn't it like tough? Maybe not quite as extreme as that, but. But a high pressure environment, definitely.
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Especially for young girls. Right. And also it's worth noting, things were not going very well for Beyonce at this point. So the no's were also having financial problems because, as we said, their dad quit the job to manage them. The family had to move out of that lovely house. The parents even split up for six months though, you know, in the personal stakes, Beyonce's life is not going particularly well.
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But then came one of those moments in our stories which basically changed everything. And what's in the name? Well, quite a lot, because this band changed its name to Destiny's Child, and destiny beckoned.
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Very good.
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Yeah. Four years earlier, Beyonce had met an A and R. That's artists from repertoire. They're the kind of people responsible for finding talent called Teresa Labarbera White. Teresa was keen on her, but couldn't convince her label to sign the act. Fast forward to 1996. Beyonce's now 14. Teresa has got a new job at Columbia Records. It's part of Sony. So Matthew calls her up, and this time she does manage to convince the label. And Destiny's Child, in fact, is her first signing.
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Their first single, no no no, which is an incredible song, by the way. Major hit, peaking at number three on the US Billboard chart. But the album only made number 67. Now, this failure probably was a blessing in a way. Be has said the label didn't really believe we were pop stars. They underestimated us. And because of that, they allowed us to write our own songs, write our own video treatments. It ended up being the best thing because that's when I became an artist and I took control.
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That's fascinating, isn't it? So they didn't think they were going to be a big enough deal to micromanage them, so they let them kind of do their. To do their own thing. And the album thing is interesting because in the mid-90s, mid to late 90s, album sales are still where a lot of the money comes from.
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It's huge.
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It's huge. It's not like now you get one streaming or two streaming hits, whatever. Album sales were kind of like the bulk of your earnings.
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Well, in 1999, Destiny's Child took that artistic freedom and they brought out an album which became critically acclaimed, something called the Writings on the War. Do you know any songs from this era?
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I think. Am I right in saying that say my name is on this album?
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Absolutely.
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Oh, there we go.
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So say my name. Jumping, jumping bills, bills, bills.
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Okay.
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Hugely influential pop songs, which actually great music videos that still stand up.
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Okay. And it sold 8 million copies, three number one singles. But often with these kind of confected pop bands, in a way, the. The band was actually at war. So members Latavia and Latoya filed a lawsuit against Beyonce's dad and the group, alleging he stole their money and threw them out of the group when they tried to seek new personal terms. In fact, they only found out they'd been sacked when they watched the video for say My Name and saw two new members lip syncing to their voices.
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Ouch.
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Oh, that is brutal, isn't it? This is a bit like the guy who was who played Darth Vader, who didn't realize that his voice had been replaced by James Earl Jones until he actually saw the film.
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That's gotta hurt.
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Anyway, But Matthew said the allegations are totally untrue. He also said that he owned the name Destiny's Child as a Texas corporation and therefore he could decide who the members are, perhaps legally. That's right. The lawsuit was settled out of court later that year.
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So by the third album, there were just three members of Destiny's Child, the ones that we all know, Beyonce, Kelly, a new girl called Michelle, and their 2001 album. Survivor was Beyonce's very first number one album. The title and the lyrics were actually about the band's turmoil. So there's a line in there that says, you thought I wouldn't sell without you. Sold 9 million. I always thought when I was growing up that that was about a nasty ex boyfriend who didn't believe in Beyonce or the rest of the girls. But actually it's about all this internal struggle going on within the band at the time. And also by that point, by the way, there was no denying this was the Beyonce show. She was front and center. She was also getting major writing and production credits on the album, which we know from the Taylor Swift episode is so crucial to making money.
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Yeah.
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And Survivor sold 10 million. That's a lot. But it's always tricky to find out exactly how much money artists are making from their music.
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Yeah. In 2016, entertainment website the Jasmine Brand reported on the terms of the original deal Destiny's Child signed with Sony. Apparently they got an 85 advance of the first album. The second album they would get between 350 and 700 similar amounts for third and so on. And their royalty rates were set at 28% for the first album. But the rates would rise if an album sold over 500,000 copies. However, and this is fairly standard, all the money the label paid to cover producer fees and promotion marketing would be recouped by Sony from the album profits.
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So we don't know if the advances were split equally. Latavia and Latoya have claimed that they weren't. But it's hard to be at the stage show if Beyonce had personally made a million. And in order to do that, Beyonce needs to go solo. So at the end of 2001, Destiny's Child announces a hiatus. She's only 21. At this stage, she's on her own. Beyonce releases a collaboration with a rapper, the man who would later on become her husband, Jay Z. And according to Beyonce, she was not flush with cash at the beginning of their relationship. She says, we used calling cards and Skype when we were falling in love. I couldn't afford the international hotel bills, so I would literally get international calling cards to call him.
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Okay. Famously expensive, those phone calls from your hotel room. At this point though, Beyonce started diversifying her revenue stream. Now that sounds all very businesslike in my comfort zone. She's starting to cash in on sponsorship. She replaced Britney Spears as the face of Pepsi. She's dipping her toe into acting. She starred in an MTV made for TV film, Carmen. A hip hopper grown. And then the big screen is Foxy Cleopatra in Austin Powers Gold member. I don't remember that.
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Oh, I remember this. And she also did a song for it from memory.
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Did she?
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Which is quite good, I think, but you know, forgotten to the mists of time.
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But things are about to get really big for her.
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Exactly. So things exploded in 2003 when she released her debut solo album, Dangerously in Love. It debuted at number one in the States, it earned her five Grammy awards, and it was a truly global hit. In fact, she became the first female artist and the fifth artist ever to simultaneously top both the singles charts and the album charts in the US and the uk. That is really, really difficult. And most importantly for Beyonce's journey to a billion, Dangerously in Love became one of the best selling albums of the 21st century. So between this, the acting jobs, the Pepsi gig, it feels fair to say that Beyonce is a millionaire in 2003 at the age of 30. 22.
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22.
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Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those five dollar roses at a gas station? Or a second hand piece of technology that breaks in the first ten minutes. Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great. Impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that. Bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com broadcast that's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.
- [17:18]
C
Enjoy the sunshine with sales on grill ready favorites from Whole Foods Market. Take cookouts to sizzling new heights with their marinated salmon and made in house marinated beef and chicken. Entertain with low priced 365 brand chips and dips like hummus and guacamole and sweeten every party with brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Remember to pack the cooler with probiotic sodas, sparkling waters and more summer savings await you at Whole Foods Market.
- [17:45]
A
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- [18:42]
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- [18:45]
A
Download TikTok and check it out.
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C
Okay, so Beyonce is now a millionaire and next up, we're going to track her journey onto a billion.
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But you've got a long way to go to get from a million to a billion. A billion is a thousand million for new listeners just to remind you of that. So as much as we love them. Well, you love. Well, we both love the music. I think you know it better than I. We're gonna have to fast forward to the next few albums which are B day. Is it short for Birthday or Beyonce Day?
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Well, I think both actually.
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Okay, got it.
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Then there's I Am Sasha Fierce and for and I think you will know the big hits from this I want
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to say single Lady Crazy in Love. We're not there yet, are we?
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No, we are. So singles from the albums Irreplaceable.
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You know that one you will probably don't hum it for for copyright reasons. We mustn't sort of go there because we'll get sued or probably.
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Exactly. So Irreplaceable ring the Alarm.
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Okay. Yeah.
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Single Ladies.
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Single Ladies. Now that I do know.
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Exactly.
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Love that tune. And also, I think it was the absolute one of the standout videos of all time.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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If I Were a Boy.
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No.
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Run the World Girls.
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I'm sure, like I say, you know, if you sang it, which you're not allowed to, I'm getting a massive F on this one. But lots of people did know them and they sold tons.
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Yeah. So we can say that they amassed over 75 million album sales worldwide.
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That is astonishing. But we're interested also in Beyonce the businesswoman. And she has said men often have the luxury of being perceived as the strategists, the brains behind their ventures. They're given the space to focus on the product, the team, the business plan. Women, on the other hand, especially those in the limelight, are frequently pigeonholed into being the face of the brand or the marketing tool. Interesting quote.
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So let's jump to 2008, when she founds a company called Parkwood Entertainment, which is named after the street that the Knowles big White House had been on. So Parkwood is her kind of in house production and management company. It produces the tours, the music, the films, the documentaries that will follow this move, and it also fronts most of the production costs. The. But this means it allows her to retain more backend revenue. She's no longer having the record label siphon it off. And so this decision was part one in Beyonce becoming an independent woman.
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Yeah. So again, that thing we've talked about before, about very few people were gonna write you a cheque just to do something like a salary or, you know, well done for doing this. You need to own the company like Oprah did with her production company. Part two of what you just said was part one came in 2011 when she announced that her father, Matthew, was no longer her manager. Now, according to Beyonce's press release, they had spit amicably. She said, I've only parted ways with my father on a business level. He is my father for life and I love my dad dearly. But a few months later, this version of events was called into question somewhat when Matthew filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment for turning his daughter against him.
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Now, Matthew claimed that he was fired by Beyonce. He alleged this was because Live Nation Entertainment had told her he'd stolen money from her. As in his own daughter. Quite the allegation. So Beyonce had to then get a lawyer to conduct an audit, which allegedly concluded that Matthew had indeed taken money.
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Now, we should say that Matthew, her dad, completely denied taking any money from his daughter and argued that Live Nation was lying with the goal of getting rights to Beyonce's tour, something Live Nation denied. Ultimately, the lawsuit didn't seem to go anywhere. Live Nation, Beyonce did not publicly comment on it. But probably worth noting, this was also around the same time that Matthew conceived a child with another woman during an 18 month affair, which led to him and Tina. Don't know if this contributed, but, you know, it probably didn't help. You know, tensions were clearly running high.
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And this moment, I think, feels like a real turning point for Beyonce because she's about to turn 30 years old. Big moment in anybody's life. She makes herself CEO of Parkwood Entertainment and she starts managing herself. She said, I felt like I wanted to follow the footsteps of Madonna and be a powerhouse and have my own empire and show other women. When you get to this point in your career, you don't have to go sign with someone else and share your money and your success. You do it. And just weeks after parting with her father, she releases a song that I mentioned. Run the World Girls.
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Okay. But business had to be put on hold. The next year, Beyonce had a miscarriage, describing it as the saddest thing I've ever been through. Beyonce and Jay Z, by the way, had married in 2008. And interestingly, in the modern world, no photographs in the wedding were leaked, which shows how impressively tight a lid they kept on that relationship. And she gave birth to her first daughter, Blue ivy Carter, in 2012. And she described, described becoming a mother as the biggest accomplishment of my life. She would have twins five years later, by the way.
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C
So shortly after Blue Ivy was born, Beyonce filed an application to trademark her daughter's name. This began a legal battle that has been going on ever since, involving objections from a wedding planner. There was also a clothing brand who already held that name. According to Jay Z, the reason was people wanted to make products based on our child's name. And you don't want anybody trying to benefit off your baby's name.
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No, if anyone's going to do that, it's going to be me. That's right. To the Beckhams here.
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C
Oh, yeah, definitely. Or other kind of showbiz family dynasties where you can tell mum and dad are angling for their child to get into the same business. And I think you can definitely see that. You know, the most recent Met gala, we saw Blue Ivy on the red carpet next to her mum.
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A
Yeah. I think you should trademark your name. It's really cool. Maybe I'm not I'm not sure before anyone else does it first trademarkable. But like many mothers, particularly driven ones like Beyonce, she got back to work very quickly. Four months after giving birth, she performed four consecutive shows in an Atlantic City. And she said, that was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Rehearsal started three months after I gave birth. I was nervous that I wouldn't feel the same. I think a lot of people coming back from childbirth think that. And when I still feel the need to work just as hard and I still felt the same release, I was
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C
like, okay, well, 2013 is the year that Beyonce went stratospheric. She performed at the super bowl halftime show in front of 110 million viewers.
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People don't know about American football. The halftime super bowl show is one of the biggest set pieces in the global and entertainment calendar. You know, people like Michael Jackson famously did it and caused a sensation. You know, always a subject of great cultural, you know, debate and analysis. For example, when Bad Bunny did it recently, that it was a political storm. So it's a big deal, right?
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C
Exactly. Well, artists actually, and this is interesting, they're not paid a performance fee for the halftime show, but she had actually just resigned with Pepsi for an estimated 50 million, which included a halftime commercial. And Forbes described this deal as an unconventional M.A. because Beyonce would have an element of creative control with a multi million dollar fund to support the singer's chosen creative projects, presumably including the Super Bowl.
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A
Yeah. So every part of your Beyonce's life now is a product in a way. And that year she wrote, produced and directed and starred, of course, in a documentary called Life is but a Dream. And she's always stressed her hands on approach. She was actually on Final Cut Pro, that software which you used to edit video. She said, I spent a year editing. I went through hundreds of shows worth of foot. And that experience taught me to love the filmmaking process. So, you know, an early adopter then of this kind of self execing. You know, I'm thinking of Taylor Swift here as well.
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C
Exactly. The Beckhams have done it recently as well. I know some documentary filmmakers who actually hate this kind of form of documentary filmmaking because they say if the talent or the subject gets to make the show, it's not really going to be truthful.
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Yeah.
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If Beyonce's on Final Cut Pro, kind of editing together everything, you know, is it going to be an objective portrait of the truth? Who knows?
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Yeah. In general, everyone needs an editor. Right. And that editor shouldn't be you.
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C
Unless maybe it's Beyonce. Beyonce could edit me anytime.
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A
Okay. And that was the year she ripped up the music industry rule book. She dropped her fifth solo album, which was a visual album called Beyonce Totally out of the Blue. And it broke the record as the fastest selling album in itunes history. And again, was one of those things that must have been like this Manhattan Project. It must have been kept very secret because it would have been a big deal to release it from nowhere. I mean, David Bowie did this towards the end of his life. That's a different thing. He was not the kind of global superstar with everyone's eyes on them that Beyonce was at the time.
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C
You can imagine the number of lawyers that Beyonce must have hired just to write the NDA's to keep everyone silent.
- [27:26]
A
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, sort of study in control, isn't it? In an interview, the journalist from GQ magazine noted that Beyonce's ground rule was that she filmed everything. The tape would become part of her temperature controlled archive. Includes private footage compiled by a visual director that Beyonce employs who has shot practically her every waking moment up to 16 hours a day since 2005. As GQ magazine said, ready to be summoned and monetized at the push of a button. So this is like a real life Truman show, isn't it?
- [27:58]
C
That's exactly what I was thinking.
- [27:59]
A
Yeah.
- [28:00]
C
Except she's doing it to herself, consensually, willingly.
- [28:02]
A
Yeah, exactly. Rather than being ignorant of it, that
- [28:05]
C
year, Beyonce went on a huge tour of 132 shows. And every night after performing, she'd apparently watch a DVD of a show that she'd performed. So she'd critique herself, her dancers, her cast, cameraman, and the next morning everyone would receive pages of notes. And this, I think, attention to detail, which I think if you're on her team, must come with kind of like pulling your hair out stress. I mean, it brings results. Because gross revenue from that tour was $230 million. And that's, by the way, how much the tour brought in total, not her earnings from it.
- [28:35]
A
Yeah. So we know how much she earned that year. Forbes estimated her earnings to be $115 million. And just breaking that down a bit, you got the album sales. Her deal with Sony at the time was rumored to be structured more like a joint ven. Usually you get a royalty rate around 20%. She was getting 50 endorsements with Pepsi and H and M. She was making big money from her celebrity fragrances, Heat, Pulse, Rise. They were making tens of millions a year. Apparently, Heat has actually got seven spin off scents do you own any celebrity fragrances?
- [29:05]
C
No. I have to admit, I was not one for the celebrity fragrance era.
- [29:09]
A
I know. Anyway, so all of that adds up.
- [29:11]
C
Yeah, exactly. So all this combined. Forbes named Beyonce the most powerful celebrity in the world that year based on the money she was earning and her fame. But she's only got about a quarter of a billion at this point. Only peanuts. So let us Fast forward to 2016 for her next big business move.
- [29:28]
A
Okay, first of all, the music. In 2016, she released Lemonade. Now, again, this was a surprise release, a fully visualized album. It was personal this time. It was all about the infidelity of her husband, Jay Z. You'll remember this controversy better than I because it had lots of tongues wagging. What were they saying?
- [29:46]
C
Oh, my God, how do I even even. This is a whole kind of odyssey that all the Beyonce fans had to go on. Right. So basically, the Met.
- [29:53]
A
I'm going to strap myself in.
- [29:54]
C
Okay. Get the popcorn. So basically, the Met Gala, one of the most highly public big showbiz events organized by Vogue to raise money for the Met Museum in New York. Someone leaked footage of Solange, Beyonce's little sister, kicking and hitting Beyonce's husband, Jay Z, in the lift. It's kind of wild because Solange doesn't just go for him once. She goes for him several times. And Beyonce sort of like in between two of them, but she sort of stood against the wall of the lift, not doing anything, which suggests she kind of maybe approves. And everyone thinks this is because that was the night that Beyonce and Solange found out about this woman that she refers to on her album as Becky with the good hair. The woman that Jay Z had been having an affair with.
- [30:37]
A
Right. Okay.
- [30:38]
C
And so this became this whole kind of for my money, breeding frenzy. Exactly. And this is the first time you ever get a crack in Beyonce's perfect image. Right.
- [30:46]
A
Okay.
- [30:47]
C
Where it's like her husband has cheated on her and she makes that. This album, Lemonade, all about that.
- [30:51]
A
Okay. And people presumably absolutely loved it.
- [30:55]
C
Oh, yeah. It was commercially a success, critically a massive hit. Critics loved it. It was included in every end of year list. It topped Rolling Stone's greatest albums of the 21st century. It even won a Peabody Award.
- [31:07]
A
It actually outsold some other big names that year. We're talking about Adele, Kanye, Ye these days. Drake. Rihanna beat them all. And to support the album, she went on the formation tour, playing 49 dates. The first episode ever, all stadium tour by a female artist. That's interesting. I thought Madonna might have done that before, but no, the tour gross 256 million. That's $5 million every night.
- [31:30]
C
Yeah. And I do remember seeing this, and this is a real. I mean, this was a real phenomenon when it came to London. In 2016, she also made a major move into fashion. So she'd actually tried this before. In 2005, she launched a brand called House of Darion with her mum, Tina, which was kind of. Kind of denim skirts. Dresses started off okay, but in the early 2000 and tens, House of Derrion was quietly shuttered. But then in 2016, she started tapping into the growing Athleisure market with a line called Ivy Park. And if you want to hear more about Athleisure, you can check out our episode on Ben Francis, the Gymshark.
- [32:03]
A
The Gymshark. Okay, that's interesting. I have to say. House of Derrien, as names go, I'm not a fan. No, yeah, Ivy park, much more like it. In fact, I remember that, the launch of that, because every day when I come to work, I have to walk past the flagship store of Topshop, and it was all over. The branding of Ivy park was all over that for months. And it was because she'd met with the owner, Sir Philip Green, another one our billionaires. Check out that episode. And Beyonce said of him, I think he was originally thinking, I wanted to do an endorsement deal like they've done with other celebrities, where they just basically sign up, you know, say, I wear you this other product, but I wanted a joint venture. I present him with the idea, the mission statement, the purpose, marketing strategy, all in the first meeting. I think he was pretty blown away. And so he agreed to a 5050 partnership. I mean, why wouldn't you want to be a partner with Beyonce at that time? Incredible. That's like, you don't need much business acumen to say this might be a good thing. So they launched Ivy park just a week before Lemonade came out with a big cover interview in some of the magazines, including Elle, selling that new line.
- [33:05]
C
But in 2018, Beyonce bought Topshop out of that partnership after Philip Green was named as having taken le legal action to prevent the publication of allegations of sexual harassment of staff. Accusations, by the way, that he categorically and wholly denies. Instead, in 2019, Ivy park announced it was partnering with Adidas. And this was turning a bad situation into an opportunity because Adidas is the second richest sportswear company in the world. They offered her creative control. And meanwhile, Philip Green's Arcadia Group, which owned Topshop, was actually collapsing.
- [33:38]
A
Boy, Do I remember that? I was reporting on that a lot at the time, and often with late night phone calls with Sophia Philip himself. And it was true that at that time, Sir Philip Green was being called the unacceptable face of capitalism. He was a bit of toxic brand. There's no way someone at Beyonce wanted to be hooked to that wagon at all. So there's no surprise that that partnership broke up.
- [33:58]
C
Absolutely.
- [34:00]
A
But the Adidas one didn't last long either. In 2023, they mutually parted ways due to creative differences. Love that. Behind those differences, poor sales. Though they were down more than 50% to around 40 million in 2022, which is pretty bad for. For a business the size of Adidas. Because they projected $250 million in sales. Ivy park had been losing money for Adidas.
- [34:21]
C
Oof.
- [34:22]
A
Which is a surprise to me, I must say, but there we go.
- [34:24]
C
Not a good time for Adidas. But also not a problem for Beyonce, because the original deal she signed guaranteed her about 20 million in annual compensation regardless of sales. Great fine print there. When the split was announced, it was said that Beyonce was excitedly looking to reclaim her brand. But. But I think we can safely say that, you know, fashion is not Beyonce's route to a billion because Ivy park has not operated since then.
- [34:48]
A
So if that's not going to work, let's try something else. So she tried her hand at some other consumer brands. Got a hair care brand called Secred, say Cred CE Acute Sacred.
- [34:59]
C
Although if people are struggling to pronounce it, perhaps not the best name for your brand.
- [35:04]
A
Yes, it's hard to tell how successful that's been so far. It's reported estimates it's generating 200 million in annual revenue in the first year. But she chose, interestingly, not to be the face of this brand, saying, I made a conscious decision not to appear in the ads. The brand's first impression needed to stand on its own merit, not be swayed by my influence.
- [35:24]
C
Interesting.
- [35:24]
A
You've got influence like that, why not use it? I think that's a really, really interesting departure.
- [35:28]
C
Well, she's also launched a whiskey which is called Sir Davis, named after her great grandfather. This is a joint venture with Moet Hennessy, and it follows in the path of her husband, Jay Z, who got into business with lvmh, who owned Moey Hennessy years ago. His champagne Among Amanda Brunock was the biggest contributor to him becoming a billionaire back in 2019, when Forbes estimated it was worth $310 million to him.
- [35:52]
A
Wow.
- [35:52]
C
But it remains to be seen whether or not Beyonce's whiskey will be as profitable.
- [35:57]
A
Yeah, it's interesting one, isn't it? I don't see Beyonce and whiskey as two things that go together, whereas I do see the bling of Jay Z and champagne. I don't know, I could be totally wrong. What do I know? But it did work in one other way, because the whiskey became part of Beyonce's cowboy era. Because in 2024 she released Cowboy Carter, the second in a trilogy of albums. The first was Renaissance, or Renaissance as the Americans would say in 2022. Again, critical commercial success. Beyonce had the power to sell with the ensuing cowboyification. And I have to say I do remember this bit. Although I never went to one of her live shows. There was a period in London when everyone on the tube, wherever you went, was wearing boots and a cowboy hat and denim. I was like, what's going on? Is there some country and western festival? And in a way there was. Because it was basically Beyonce's cowboy era.
- [36:47]
C
Exactly. Well, I mean, unsurprisingly, Brands also wanted to help Beyonce capitalize on this new aesthetic. Levi's paid her an estimated 10 million for a series of commercials and she got an estimated 50 million for a special halftime show for Netflix's first Christmas Day NFL game.
- [37:03]
A
Yeah, but unlike her husband Jay Z and her contemporary Rihanna, it doesn't really seem that Beyonce's billionaire status is down to all these product things like Rihanna with Fenty and what have you was a huge part of her billionaire status. Her fortune is kind of like a good old fashioned musician's fortune. Like Taylor Swift is down to touring. And the value of the music catalog, that is massive.
- [37:25]
C
Right, Because Forbes also estimated her music catalog had increased in value to 300 million. And through Parkwood Entertainment, she has significant ownership and control over her master recordings, especially from her self titled 2013 album on.
- [37:39]
A
And remember how important that is because Taylor Swift went to the length of re recording her original album so that she owned the masters of, you know, the Taylor's version. So that's a huge part of their wealth because that's an asset which keeps on giving. Every time it's used in an advert, every time it's played on the radio, every time, whatever, some money drops on the mat for many, many years. And so you can actually kind of work out the value of what the future revenues would be at the time. That adds up to a lot of money and a big part of these people's wealth.
- [38:07]
C
Exactly. And there's so many people making money off off of historic older albums, tracks Songs right now. You know, it's something that private equity has also started injecting itself into.
- [38:17]
A
Well, because in the old days, you go in and buy an album, let's say you bought, you know, writings on the wall or whatever, your financial relationship with that band could be over at that point. But with streaming, you know that you're going to keep getting bits of money for years to come, and therefore it becomes a whole different kind of financial creature and.
- [38:40]
C
Exactly. And even after you d, you probably get an even bigger bump in the amount of revenue you get from that.
- [38:45]
A
Yeah. And so by the end of 2023, she was worth 800 million. You add in Cowboy Carter in 2024, that tour made 400 million ticket sales. 50 million merchandising. So all of that meant by the end of 2025, Forbes declared Beyonce a billionaire worth $1 billion.
- [39:05]
C
But what next for Beyonce? She said, I can only work on what liberates me. It's fame that can at times feel like a prison. So when you don't see me on red carpets and when I disappear until I have art to share.
- [39:17]
A
That's why sometimes you've had a career, you rinse it a bit too much, and it's hard for her to fly much higher. Let's see how her altitude in terms of fame and earning power goes from here.
- [39:27]
C
Well, remember, she's currently in the middle of recording that trilogy of albums. Cabokotta was the second one. The rumor is that the third album will be a rock album. Could come out at any minute. It could be a surprise drop.
- [39:38]
A
Wow.
- [39:39]
C
So we will see how Beyonce does rock and roll.
- [39:41]
A
Okay, I'm looking.
- [39:42]
C
Watch this space.
- [39:43]
A
Watch this space. That is the Beyonce Knowles story so far. Let us try and score Beyonce on our billionaire categories. This is for a bit of fun. We rate our billionaires on a series of categories from 0 to 10 on wealth, controversy, pass, power, and legacy. So let us start with wealth.
- [40:03]
C
Well, I mean, she's not particularly high on the wealth stakes, Right. So she's currently about 3300th in the world today. But there are very few music billionaires. Obviously Taylor Swift is one of them. But all in, there's probably less than 10 in the world.
- [40:18]
A
Yeah, she came from a bit of money. Often we talk about how far they come from rags to riches. So we know that she started out in a very comfortable, pretty successful middle class household in Houston. But boy, she knows how to spend it, doesn't she? In 2023, her and Jay Z spent $200 million for a Malibu beachfront mansion, which we think is the highest price ever paid for a property in California. And you're up against some pretty stiff competition in California.
- [40:44]
C
I mean, you're up against what, movie stars?
- [40:47]
A
Yeah. And also, of course, as a couple, they like to slash the cash, didn't they? I can't think of a more.
- [40:52]
C
More.
- [40:53]
A
They were the power couple, weren't they?
- [40:55]
C
I mean, you could do an entire podcast about how those two as a couple have navigated getting older together and having kids. Right. Because she was so young when they met. He was older. He came from, you know, we've done the episode on him. He literally came from the housing projects of New York. And she comes from this nice middle class background. How those two have continued to go on and create a business despite the infidelity, despite Becky with the good hair and. And had three kids. I mean, it's really intriguing. But, yeah, they do love to spend it, too.
- [41:24]
A
Okay, so let's give them a wealth rating. She's entry level for our purposes because it's only just crept into the billionaire category. So. Not that. But on the kind of lifestyle and the aspirational stuff and the way they flaunt it, I'm going to give them a five. Give her a five.
- [41:40]
C
I feel like as someone who spent personally quite a lot of money on Beyonce tours, I feel like I have to give her slightly more. So maybe I'll give her a six out of ten. Okay.
- [41:49]
A
All right. What about controversy? I mean, one of the most written about women in history. Probably a lot of think pieces about whether she's a feminist or not discussed.
- [41:58]
C
Yeah, I mean, it is interesting because obviously she'd had that whole run the world girls era where I mean, the lyric is literally, girls, we run the world. And she stood in front of a giant screen that basically said feminist and included spoken words from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichace. We should all be feminist essay, if you remember that. And you can, you know, look it up. It's at the VMAs. And there is an argument to be had that, you know, Beyonce is this feminist icon. She's shown young women and girls, especially black women, that you can be the star, you can be the mogul in the same way that Jay Z is.
- [42:32]
A
Yeah, not just the star, but the mogul. That's an important distinction, isn't it?
- [42:35]
C
Right.
- [42:35]
A
Black.
- [42:35]
C
The black Bill Gates, basically. But then, you know, there's also a strand of feminism that says, actually, all you're doing is kind of kowtowing to the temple of capitalism. At the end of the day, you're just telling people that you can do it through, you know, hard work, through making money, when that maybe isn't how society is set up, especially not for people of color. So I think it's an ongoing tension in her work, really. You know, I think Beyonce, when you listen to her, when you read her interviews, she has a pretty, you know, strong idea of, you know, what her feminism consists of. I mean, she said, I'm not really sure people know or understand what a feminist is, but it's very simple. It's someone who believes in equal rights for man and woman. Ask anyone, man or woman, do you want your daughter to have 75 cents when she deserves a dollar? What do you think the answer would be? Okay, I think that's pretty dead on.
- [43:20]
A
Okay, fair enough.
- [43:21]
C
I think the whole controversy over whether Beyonce is a feminist or an arch capitalist, honestly, it just depends on which side of the coin you like.
- [43:29]
A
Controversy. Some would say ruthless. We use that word sometimes. I mean, if you look at the Destiny's Child era, there was chopping, interchanging. I mean, her dad saying, wanting to put her front and center. Center. I go and see, you know, people with their kids in the football pitch on a Sunday afternoon, and every dad wants their son to be center forward. Do you know what I mean? It's a, it's a little. No one wants to put them. Putting goal. Apologies to goalies out there, but you know what I mean, I don't think that a parent angling to put their talented daughter somewhere front and center in this thing, given that you've given up your job for it, I don't think that's entirely surprising. So I'm not going to blame them for that. I mean, she fired her dad as her manager, but we've seen that before in these things. So I'm gonna give her quite a low score for controversy. I'm gonna give her a three.
- [44:14]
C
I think I would give her a two out of 10. I mean, she's not, you know, in the grand good, bad billionaire stakes.
- [44:19]
A
Three for me, two for you. Okay. Power.
- [44:21]
C
If she called up the White House, would the president pick up? Oh, yeah, definitely.
- [44:26]
A
Yeah.
- [44:26]
C
Any president.
- [44:27]
A
Mr. President, Beyonce on line one. You'd take it, wouldn't you?
- [44:30]
C
Oh, 100% the president of any country, I think.
- [44:33]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [44:34]
C
Which is quite a fair.
- [44:35]
A
Also in terms of her economic power, she can influence whole nations economic statistics. When her entourage comes to town, I think it's in Sweden. Tickets for her show and hotel bookings sparked such a frenzy that Sweden reported higher than expected inflation. Visit Stockholm described the boom in tourism to the city as the Beyonce effect.
- [44:56]
C
Yeah. Not a million miles away from Swiftonomics, which is the exact same thing which happened when Taylor Swift's Eras tour rolled into town in various cities around the world.
- [45:05]
A
And can she influence things like fashion? I mean, her forays into fashion didn't work that well. But she can influence the look for Cowboy Carter.
- [45:13]
C
Exactly. I mean, my God, I don't think I've ever seen as many cowboy boots as I did when Beyonce's tour rode into town.
- [45:21]
A
So power. I'm going to give her a pretty high rating. I'm going to give a seven.
- [45:25]
C
Yeah, I think I'm going to give her higher. I think I'm going to give her an 8 out of 10. When you not only be become. Is it a mononym where you're just first name only, like Cher, Madonna, Beyonce.
- [45:36]
A
Yeah. Or even a letter.
- [45:37]
C
Exactly. Or B. You know, that says a lot about the amount of power you have.
- [45:41]
A
Yeah. Legacy. She holds a lot of records.
- [45:43]
C
Yeah. So most number of Grammy wins ever. 35. Which is kind of crazy. You know, obviously, she's been a huge figure in the black community. You know, she's been called incredibly influential. She's been cited as being inspired within beyond music alone. She popularized feminism among people who might not have embraced it before.
- [46:04]
A
Okay.
- [46:05]
C
You know, she said, you see my husband, Jay Z, and you see these male artists that become mogos, and the female artists might become legends, but there's not enough of us that become moguls. And I think there are many ways to get there.
- [46:16]
A
Okay. Interesting distinction between legend and mogul, like owning the rights of production, as we've talked about before. So legacy. Um, we'll be talking about Beyonce for as long as the. As my lifetime is, you know, the long as I've got left.
- [46:29]
C
Oh, 100%.
- [46:30]
A
So, yeah. I mean, legacy. I mean, pretty high. Nine.
- [46:33]
C
Oh, yeah. I think nine out of 10.
- [46:35]
A
Okay. She gets nine out of 10 from both of us. So. Final Reflections. There's not that many pop stars that push through to every walk of life so that you would have to be living under a very big rock indeed not to know who they were, have some familiarity with their. Their work, appreciate their influence on society. She's a superstar in every way.
- [46:56]
C
I think that if I did the kind of single ladies dance where you're like, yeah. I mean, people know that.
- [47:04]
A
Yes.
- [47:04]
C
And that is incredible for something to cut through that deeply into society, into the world, into culture. I mean, very few people manage to do that consistently and I think Beyonce is one of them.
- [47:15]
A
Yeah. So the final question, of course, of course is for you. Is Beyonce good, bad or just another billionaire? What do you think?
- [47:23]
C
So you can email goodbadbillionairebc.com or drop us a WhatsApp on 001917, 6861176 to tell us what you think about Beyonce.
- [47:35]
A
And don't forget to include your name as we may read out your message in a future episode.
- [47:38]
C
We also want to hear from you if you have personally had any encounters with billionaires. We actually heard from one listener who remembers a billionaire's carpet being so thick and luxurious it was like stepping on a cloud. Are you the groomer to a doggy owned by a billionaire? Have you sold a billionaire some bling? Are you a private jet pilot? These guys have the good stories.
- [47:57]
A
Have you. So have you signed an NDA? If not, we want to hear from you. So who do we have next episode?
- [48:07]
C
Well, we have the man who he's the most commercially successful movie director in history and made people afraid to go in the water.
- [48:14]
A
It is of course Steven Spielberg, the movie mogul who transformed cinema and kind of invented the blockbuster with Jaws.
- [48:24]
C
That's Steven Spielberg on the next episode of Good Bad Billionaire.
- [48:32]
A
Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The editor is Paul Smith and it's
- [48:37]
C
a BBC Studios production for the BBC World Service. The senior commissioning producer is Sarah Green and the commissioning editor is John Manell.
- [49:00]
B
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