In today’s edition: ShopMy hits a $1.5 billion valuation, Priscilla Chan’s efforts to outsmart disease, and Fortune’s Ellie Austin with the top takeaways from her conversation with Selena Gomez at the Fortune MPW Summit.
In the saturated celebrity beauty market, self-acceptance has emerged as a core value in recent years. A host of successful brands, including Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs, Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty, founded by Selena Gomez are, refreshingly, prioritizing inclusivity over unattainable physical norms. But can celebrities credibly build businesses around the rejection of unrealistic beauty norms that they often play a major role in promoting?
It’s a subject that I discussed at last week’s Most Powerful Women Summit with Gomez herself. She joined us, along with Elyse Cohen, Rare Beauty’s chief impact officer, to explain how the company balances profit with purpose. Estimates value Rare Beauty, which Gomez launched in 2020, at around $2.7 billion. Thanks to products including its now-viral liquid blush, it’s one of Sephora’s top-selling brands globally. And 1 percent of all Rare Beauty sales goes to the Rare Impact Fund, a philanthropic arm focused on access to youth mental health services and education.
Gomez told me that she considers skepticism about celebrities promoting natural beauty “very valid.” “I’m as real as I can be… I’ll tell you all the things that are photoshopped. I’ll tell you where I got Botox,” she said onstage. Her ultimate goal, she added, is “to be remembered for what I’ve done for people.”
The GLP-1 boom, combined with a global surge in cosmetic surgery, has created a new layer of pressure on young women—and men—when it comes to their bodies. Do brands like Rare Beauty need to change how they speak to their customers in order to meet this complex moment?
“Not at all,” said Gomez. “If anything, we’ll just double down on our [current] message and how we don’t use models. We use people [in our campaigns] who feel like they could be your best friend. So many brands have been doing this. It’s not just us… It makes me really proud.”
Some other takeaways from my conversation with Selena and Elyse:
– Gomez said she has no plans to sell Rare Beauty, despite a string of recent, major acquisitions showing that there’s a strong market for prestige, influencer, and celebrity-led beauty brands. “I’m not ready. I love what we do and I don’t want it to change,” she told me.
– Cohen stated that, despite some of Rare Beauty’s products being made in South Korea, tariffs have not materially impacted the business as yet. “For the most part, we’ve stayed true to our prices and continue to want to ensure we are a brand that is accessible across the board.”
– A number of the 30 non-profit organizations that the Rare Impact Fund partners with have been impacted this year by changes in federal funding. “Not only do these organizations need funding, they need capacity building,” explained Cohen. “Their staff are being laid off.” Cohen said the fund offers a range of strategic support to their partners. “We are not just funders who hand over checks.”
– Gomez shared some business advice from her close friend, Taylor Swift, who shattered records earlier this month when The Life of a Showgirl became the biggest-selling album of the modern era. “She said, ‘If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.’ And that’s why I surround myself with incredible people,” Gomez explained.
You can watch the full conversation here.
Ellie Austin
ellie.austin@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
ShopMy hits a $1.5 billion valuation with a $70 million fundraise. Cofounded by president Tiffany Lopinsky, the platform facilitates shopping recommendations and ecommerce for influencers and brands—a category created by LTK that ShopMy has quickly expanded with new kinds of brands and tastemakers. It's now facilitating more than $1 billion in annual sales. Business of Fashion
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and former president of Ireland Mary Robinson sign a letter calling for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence. Including professors and some tech execs, the signatories say superintelligence without "broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably" and "strong public buy-in" will be dangerous. Time
Misty Copeland will give her final performance with the American Ballet Theater tonight. She redefined what it meant to be a ballerina, brought new attention to the art form, and broke barriers for Black women in ballet. Oprah Winfrey and Debbie Allen will honor her at her retirement send-off tonight. CNN
ON MY RADAR
The parental happiness fallacy The Atlantic
Why are American women leaving the labor force? Economist
Inside Priscilla Chan's multibillion-dollar wager to outsmart disease Wall Street Journal
PARTING WORDS
"If something didn’t go exactly as I’d like or wasn’t what I had hoped for, [I now know,] ‘Yeah, that was a disappointment, but I’m not a disappointment.' That’s a huge difference."
— Demi Moore, Glamour's new Woman of the Year