Hailey Bieber Refused To Sell Rhode For Less Than $1 Billion
“I was just like, it’s going to be this or I am not doing it. That was my goal.”
For Hailey Bieber, the prospect of selling her Rhode skincare company was always a billion-dollar question. The former Maxim cover model and entrepreneur revealed as much in her cover interview for GQ, which delved deeper into why she sold Rhode, which is also her middle name, to cosmetics giant E.l.f. Beauty for such a lofty sum.
“I always said that I would never sell the company unless it was a billion dollars,” she said. “I was just like, it’s going to be this or I am not doing it. That was my goal. But also it was not always entirely my goal to sell the company. I thought if the right opportunity came along and the right home for it came along, then I would definitely consider it.”
Though it was surely difficult to part with a brand she’d built from the ground up in just three years (from 2022 to 2025), E.l.f. proved to be the right partner, having launched as an online-only makeup brand in 2004 before before achieving ubiquity in big-box retailers.
“With E.l.f., all of the boxes that I would want to check to find a home for it, they checked them and then some. But of course when you hear that it’s a real thing and the number is real and that’s a real situation being put in front of you, it’s definitely like, Whoa. Okay. It is very cool.”
Bieber, who’s famously married to pop superstar Justin Bieber, continues to serve as Rhode’s chief creative officer, head of innovation, and as a strategic adviser. Naturally, she has insight into what made Rhode such a meteoric success and why stores like Sephora are able to sell three Rhode products per second, as revealed by WWD and cited by GQ.
“I think that we come with a different point of view when it comes to beauty, and our assortment is super curated, super edited. I like to make these kind of staple products where it’s one of everything good. And when I say that, I mean one really good moisturizer, one really good blush, all these products that when I travel and when I’m going out for the day—things that I want to throw in my bag. And I want to make the best formula of that thing, so that I don’t feel the need to go buy it from somewhere else. That was the whole ethos of launching the brand.”
The other obvious key to Rhode’s success is Bieber’s star power and reach, which amounts to 55.7 million followers on Instagram alone. But even though she and her team were strategic and calculated in curating Rhode’s catalog, Bieber’s approach to the ‘gram is much more laid back.
“I just like to post what feels good for me,” she told GQ. I share what I’m comfortable with. I share what I think is interesting, what I think is cool, what I think looks good, and that’s kind of it. And if people resonate with that, then amazing.”
Bieber has also noted the shift in IG users’ posting style, namely “photo dumps” and “posting with music”—things that didn’t exist when she first joined the platform. “It’s definitely a beautiful tool. I think it can be a challenging tool, but I look at Instagram as this really cool photo diary as well.”
That point of view is particularly evident in her most recent posts, including an eye-catching carousel featuring pics from a recent beach getaway. In the leading photo, she glances over her shoulder at the camera while in a green bikini, while she strikes a similar pose with a black two-piece in another. Poker chips, PDA with her husband, and good times with friends appear throughout.
“I can scroll back so far and see myself in 2016 and look back on this girl that I’ve started as and where I am today.”