Fast forward a few years later and ish hit the fan when Rihanna not only left her longtime manager, but she also sued her accountants for bad business management.
This week, a new lawsuit unveiled by TMZ reveals that in 2009, Rihanna almost went bankrupt, because she took bad business advice from her accountants. They allegedly told her that it was okay to buy a $7 million home without notifying her that her moneymaker, the "Last Girl On Earth Tour," was actually losing money.
The singer claims in new legal docs she had $11 MILLION in cash at the beginning of 2009. Rihanna says the accountant was not on the ball and she was horrified to learn at the end of the year she had $2 million left. To make matters worse, her expenses doubled, which left her on a financial cliff.
As for how Rihanna blew through $9 million in one year … she says her accountant gave her the green light to buy a house priced between $7 and 7 1/2 million. So she took his advice. She ultimately sold the house for a $2 million LOSS.
She also claims her 2009 tour — Last Girl on Earth Tour — was losing money but the accountant never gave her the heads up. The legal docs were filed in connection with a lawsuit Rihanna filed against her accountant, claiming gross mismanagement.
Back in 2008, one of Rihanna's former accountants, Patricia Williams, was fired and she was so angry that she gave a tell-all interview to PageSix about what was really going on in RiRi's camp.
"I don't want to disrespect Marc's name. He is a fantastic manager and genuinely believes in Rihanna. But he uses her money to fund her future projects because he believes he can break her in the world-market. Her album sales are not nearly as close to her single sales and he knows that if she is only known as a 'singles artist' she will only be as good as her last hit. Unfortunately, he didn't inform his client and I'm receiving the brunt of it.
"Her record label Def Jam has put out 3 albums in a time span of 2 years. Alot of that was orchestrated through her management Rebel One. It was never Def Jam's intention to release so many albums back-to-back but Marc Jordan found loop holes and ways to make it happen.A lot of the money Rihanna made through her endorsements between CoverGirl Cosmetics, Samsung.. Notice that majority of Rihanna's videos have a cell phone in it?"
"After the release of Rihanna and Teairra Mari, Def Jam had intention to drop both acts because their album sales were not successful. Her manager fought to get [S.O.S (Rescue Me)] and quickly tried to negotiate with as many companies as possible. Nike picked up the song and funded a video. This brought the hype back for Rihanna in the company's New York office. Majority of the official 'S.O.S' video was funded by Samsung because the record label was only willing to put up a small amount. Once 'S.O.S' picked up digitally and at radio, Def Jam agreed to fund the rest of her album. Jordan instantly got a video shot to 'Unfaithful' (he negotiated with video director Anthony Mandler to drop his price and would be given more videos from Rihanna in return). Then they shot 'We Ride' which was an extremely cheap video to create. 'Break It Off' was released as a third album, but again, Def Jam was unhappy with the sales of her album "A Girl Like Me" and refused to shoot a video. At this point Rihanna was opening up for the Pussycat Doll's in Europe. She was making 30,000 a show but she didn't see any of that money because it was needed to fund her next album." Which is now known to the greater public as a 'Good Girl Gone Bad'."
The song "Umbrella" was found & Jordan fought again for Rihanna to have it. They shot the video, which CoverGirl funded half of, and the song became a success. When the record label had there meeting with Music Stores across the U.S to order her album for shipment, the number's weren't coming in the way that they expected. When the album's first week numbers came in at less than 150,000, the label was shocked. Def Jam's President LA Reid was livid! Umbrella was #1 for 11 weeks! Any other artist would have sold way more first week. T-Pain even did better in sales than her that week. Def Jam told Jordan they were no longer funding the album, so Jordan needed money again to pay for music videos 'Shut Up & Drive' and 'Dont Stop The Music'. Almost 250,000 was spent to have those videos created. Plus, an additional 120,000 to shoot 'Hate That I Love You'. Jordan was noticing that 'Dont Stop The Music' was picking up, so her persuaded the label to support it at radio in the U.S and the remaining singles, and they did."
"Then came for the repackaging of her album 'Good Girl Gone Bad', which is called 'Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded', that entire project was funded through Rihanna's money. 'Take A Bow' was bought through her money, the video was created with her money and so is her most recent video and single 'Disturbia'. The label didn't even want to pay a dime for anything! Close to 750,000 was spent on those two songs alone. And now she expects to see money in her account?"
It looks as though taking the risk to fund her own projects may have paid off seeing as though she's one of the biggest stars in the world now. BUT it's definitely good that she cleaned house when she did. Years after giving her management and financial advisors the boot, she's earning upwards of $43 million a year (when she's touring). – Forbes
