Hailey Bieber sold Rhode skincare to e.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion in August 2025, marking the fastest path to a billion-dollar valuation in modern beauty history.
The 28-year-old founder built a $212 million business in just three years with only 10 products, then secured generational wealth while maintaining creative control as Chief Creative Officer.
In a candid WSJ Magazine interview, she revealed her primary motivation: “I want to preserve that for my son’s future.”
The timing of Rhode’s sale cannot be separated from motherhood.
Hailey and Justin Bieber’s son Jack Blues Bieber was born August 22, 2024, and announced on Instagram the next day with a simple caption: “WELCOME HOME JACK BLUES BIEBER 🐻” that garnered 19 million likes in 24 hours.
The Rhode acquisition announcement came nine months later, on May 28, 2025, when Jack was approaching his first birthday.
In the October 14, 2025 WSJ Magazine Innovators Issue, where Hailey was named 2025’s “Beauty Innovator”, she explicitly connected the sale to securing her son’s future.
“I want to preserve that for my son’s future. It’s an amount of money that I have not dealt with before, so I just want to be smart with it. I would like to invest it wisely.
This marked a departure from typical celebrity wealth rhetoric, emphasising preservation and legacy over lifestyle spending.
Motherhood fundamentally transformed her approach to business and life. She described gaining “ferocity”—”this silent strength and confidence” where “you can’t tell me the same s*** that you could tell me before. You’re not f***ing with me after I pushed a human out of my body.”
This newfound assertiveness translated into business advocacy: “You are your child’s advocate…motherhood has helped me ‘advocate’ for myself more.”
The woman who built Rhode pre-motherhood sold it post-motherhood with enhanced conviction and clarity about priorities.
The couple has been deliberately private about Jack, never showing his face publicly despite immense interest.
They share occasional photos with his face obscured or showing only his feet.
On his first birthday (August 22, 2025), Hailey posted a carousel captioned “1 year of you my beautiful boy…you are joy personified.”
Justin Bieber has been consistently supportive of Rhode since its inception.
He attended the February 2025 LA pop-up event, posting “The vibes were tangible at @rhode pop up,” and accompanied Hailey and Jack to Mallorca in July 2025 for the Lemontini Lip Tint launch, a source told People “Hailey was excited, but also nervous.
She loved having Justin there.” When the $1 billion sale was announced, Justin posted a glamorous photo of Hailey with heart emoji, and at Rhode’s September 2025 Sephora launch he wrote “go baby go baby go baby go baby goooooo” (referencing his song “Go Baby” which includes the lyric “That’s my baby, she’s iconic, iPhone case, lip gloss on it”).
The couple married September 13, 2018 in Manhattan (legal ceremony) and celebrated with 150 guests at Montage Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina on September 30, 2019.
They’ve weathered persistent divorce rumours, which sources dismiss as “annoying but just noise.”
Stephen Baldwin, Hailey’s father and youngest of the Baldwin brothers, calls Jack “incredibly cute” and a “plump potato,” praising Hailey’s positive influence on Justin: “I am just glad he connected with a great gal to help him survive.”
Hailey’s estimated personal stake in Rhode, approximately 50-70% equity, translates to roughly $300-433 million after taxes (assuming a 40% rate), split with co-founders Michael and Lauren Ratner, CEO Nick Vlahos, and other stakeholders.
This vaults her estimated net worth to $300 million (per Celebrity Net Worth), notably exceeding Justin’s $200 million. Contrary to some reports, she is not a billionaire, but the sale does establish generational wealth independent of her husband’s success or celebrity income streams.
Her approach reflects lessons from growing up in the Baldwin family, watching the volatility of Hollywood careers.
International Business Times noted Hailey views this as “legacy money, not consumption,” representing “a shift toward financial maturity rarely seen among young celebrity founders.”
She continues working, testing products, attending development meetings, directing creative, while preserving the bulk of proceeds as strategic investment for Jack’s future.
Justin often helps test Rhode products.
“I test them on my husband, I test them on my friends. I’m product-obsessed,” Rhode said with a laugh.
The acquisition closed August 5, 2025, three years and 51 days after Rhode’s launch, a timeline industry veterans deemed impossible. Yet Bieber defied conventional wisdom by rejecting celebrity licensing deals, maintaining majority ownership, and building authentic community engagement that made Rhode the #1 skincare brand in Earned Media Value by 2024.
“I had lent my name enough times to see how it benefited that company. I knew for a fact that if I’m doing this, I have to be the majority owner.”
The deal is a new paradigm for celebrity entrepreneurship; genuine founder involvement, operational excellence, and cultural relevance can command valuations previously reserved for established conglomerates.
