When model Hailey Bieber was on the cover of Allure introducing her soon-to-launch skin-care line called Rhode, she told us that her biggest hope for the brand was that someone might pick it up and not know it’s hers: “That would be my dream, for it to actually surprise people.” And what a surprise we all got this week when Bieber announced she’d sold her brand to E.L.F. Beauty only three years later. Even more unexpected than this accelerated time frame, though, was the amount she sold it for, according to Wednesday’s press release: $1 billion.
Later that afternoon, we weren’t surprised to see news headlines and user-generated TikTok videos swirling, mostly jumping on that B-word: Many said that Hailey Bieber sold Rhode for a billion bucks, or that she was set to earn a billion dollars from the sale of the brand. Several outlets went so far as to declare that Bieber is a billionaire now, implying that the announcement of this deal triggered a direct deposit of a 10-digit figure into her checking account.
In the headline for our interview with Bieber this week, we referred to the value of the deal as being “more money than we could ever dream of.” Definitely accurate! In a video posted to our social media accounts, our content director, Kara McGrath, stated the brand was sold for “more than half a billion.” Also accurate! Yet commenters were quick to respond, telling us we got the number wrong. But there’s a reason we didn’t say this is a full-on, billion-dollar acquisition (at least not yet).
After we looked at the transactional details laid out in the press release, we realized we wouldn’t be 100% comfortable in stating that Bieber had sold Rhode for $1 billion. It describes the deal as being “comprised of $800 million of consideration payable at closing [the second quarter of fiscal 2026] in a combination of cash and stock, subject to customary adjustments, and an additional potential earnout consideration of $200 million based on the future growth of the brand over a three-year time frame.” Since $200 million of that $1 billion is hypothetical, we paused before putting “$1 billion” in our headlines and social content.