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In September, I landed at LAX and found myself unmistakably in Hailey Bieber’s Los Angeles. On my way to meet the 28-year-old at the Chateau Marmont, I spotted her on no fewer than four enormous billboards along a mile-long stretch of Sunset Boulevard. There was Hailey the fashion muse fronting a DKNY campaign; Hailey the celebrity wife and mother standing with Justin and their son, Jack, in a promotion for her husband’s new album; Hailey the influencer toting a giant Chase credit card; Hailey the visionary businesswoman in an ad for her beauty brand, Rhode. This spring, only three years after its launch with a handful of glossy products, Bieber sold Rhode in a deal worth $1 billion. No cosmetics brand in history has hit unicorn status so quickly, which underscores both Bieber’s entrepreneurial savvy and her status as one of the most influential lifestyle moguls of our time.
Hailey Bieber: I always said that I would never sell the company unless it was a billion dollars. 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. And I think 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.
For me, everything with Rhode, I have my hopes for it, and then I feel like it always exceeds my hopes and expectations. Everything that has happened with this brand has far eclipsed anything I could have ever dreamed of and hoped for. With Sephora, I personally wasn’t expecting that to be the result. Obviously, I really wanted to push it and have it be the best launch that we could have it be. I really wanted it to be the biggest launch in Sephora’s history. I was hopeful that we would do that and that we could do that, but I thought because it was going to be on shelves, maybe it would take away a little bit of the desire to get it so quickly, because it would be in stock and it would be in stores. So I definitely was still surprised to see it go the way that it did.
I don’t know if I can exactly say why. 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. And also having really good branding and a really good aesthetic.
And I feel like for me when I’m building Rhode, it’s a whole universe and a whole world that I’m building. And when I open up that world, my hope for why people have really gravitated towards it is that they feel like they’re a part of something that is bigger than skin care. It’s not just a beauty brand, it’s a whole lifestyle. And that was something I feel like I really saw with the phone cases, and how they really integrated into people’s day-to-day lives.
It was my idea. We were sitting in a meeting and I had one of those sticky cases on the back of my phone, the suction thing, and I kept sticking the lip gloss onto the suction. And I’m holding it up and I’m looking around the room at everyone in the meeting and we were kind of like, Oh! I’m like, can someone quickly Google if this exists? Thinking a hundred percent there has to be something on Amazon. And it didn’t exist! So I was like, let’s try to do it as quickly as we can. And that’s how the phone case was born.
Honestly, I really feel like skin care is genderless. It doesn’t need to be geared towards specifically men or specifically women. Now I do understand that with men, that there’s certain grooming things that are needed, beards and all that kind of thing. But for me, my whole thing with Rhode was that I really wanted it to be a skin-care brand that was super elevated and chic in the coloring and the packaging, so that if your boyfriend went into your bathroom and wanted to use something, they wouldn’t feel like, Oh, this is really girly and everything is pink. My husband uses Rhode, and has since the beginning and loves it, and I have a lot of male friends that are obsessed with it and use it. And I’ve put a lot of guys who never really were into skin care onto the Rhode stuff, tons of Justin’s friends, and they come back to me and they’re like, “I ran out of my cleanser, I need more.” And that, to me, makes me so happy, because I think that skin care is for everybody and everybody should have access to a great skin-care routine, and it doesn’t take much to have a great skin-care routine. Even if you’re just washing your face and putting on moisturizer at night, that’s doing a lot more than doing nothing.
To be honest, I just like to post what feels good for me. 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. I mean obviously, I pay attention. I see the way people are posting. I feel like things continuously change on Instagram. Even the way people post photo dumps, and now we’re posting with music on our posts—posting with music to your Instagram didn’t exist.... So I think it’s always evolving. 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, and 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.
I don’t really archive, no. A little bit here and there. If I feel like things are getting a little messy.
It really depends, but a typical day at home for me is I get up with my son, hit a workout as much as I can. I’ve become a lot more of a homebody than I used to be. And I think when you have a child, that happens, at least it did for me. It definitely made me have so much less FOMO. And I also think getting older does that too. I have a lot of friends who don’t even have kids that feel the same way. I just don’t feel like I’m really missing out on much anymore.
The other night I was at dinner with my best friend and we were supposed to go somewhere after the dinner and it got canceled, and we both were like: Yes. I was so not mad to go home and turn on a show and just be cozy in bed. And I am so happy with that now, because I used to be a person where I was like, I want to go out to dinner every night and I don’t want to skip plans. And now I’m just a lot more fulfilled with being cozy and being in my space and recharging and energizing in that way. And then also I just love to spend time with my son too. He’s growing so fast and it’s gone by so fast, and it starts to become more and more real how much you want to soak up that time.
We’re just taking it a day at a time. We both feel very protective of our son and I don’t think that’s ever going to change, but our life is our life and it is really public, so I think we’re just going to cross every bridge that we need to when we get there. But as of right now, I feel really comfortable about the way we are sharing things and not sharing things.
I don’t think there’s anything someone can tell you about it that will ever, ever, ever prepare you until you do it yourself. But I feel much more prepared to do it again, as opposed to how not prepared I felt doing it for the first time. And I think for me personally, there’s so much unknown to it, but so much happens and so much changes and you evolve in a totally different way that you would never be able to prepare for until you do it.
I’m somebody who has always been a quite spiritual person. I think your depth of spirituality becomes deeper when you bring life into the world, for sure. It is a very spiritual experience and, yeah, I don’t think that’s ever going to change for me. I mean, I would always love to evolve the depth of it. But I don’t think that’s something that will ever not be so important in my life and close to my life.
I’d never heard that before! I posted that because I had never seen it before, but it made a lot of sense for how I feel. I’m very extroverted, but I also really need time by myself to reset. It’s someone who’s really extroverted but needs introverted time to recharge. I’ll give you a good example. We were just in New York: Sephora launch, New York Stock Exchange, very, very busy. Back-to-back-to-back. Ringing the bell. Supercool experience. Came back to LA, didn’t want to leave my house for a week, just recharging in my sanctuary, catching up on sleep. That feels very otrovert to me.
I am designing this jacket with them and I feel like that’s a super-fun collaborative process to do with his brand. I think Skylrk is incredible and amazing and everything they’re doing and building there is super, super cool, and I’m just happy that they want me to be a part of it and that they have asked me to come in and make something with them. And it’s obviously really fun when you get to be able to do anything with the person that you love. And the team there is really amazing and I feel really inspired by them. And I think the clothes are sick. I think the shoes are sick. I think the point of view is sick. I don’t like doing anything I’m not inspired by, and I feel super, super inspired by everything that they’re doing. But yeah, there are a couple of things that I’m doing with them that are coming, and then obviously he’s doing the joint-holder case, which I think is really sick and really fucking cool.
I did approve the joint case! I did, yes. And it’s just been a fun process to see him in his bag with the Skylrk stuff and what he’s doing, what he’s building, and being able to both have things that we’re really excited about and passionate about alongside each other and supporting each other. I just could not ask for more.
I think I feel more comfortable dabbling in one-off situations, and of course having fun with Skylrk is an example of that. I don’t know if I would do a clothing brand from scratch and start from zero. I also don’t want to overconsume this consumer. I don’t believe in overconsumption, but I do think getting to do collabs and one-off collabs, and especially with a brand that’s so close to me like that is something I definitely want to do more of.
And I think as I expand my world of business and brands, I am most interested in expanding it in a way where I have a very specific and different point of view. And I think having a very specific and different point of view in clothing is very hard to do, and it’s very tricky. When I do something I want to know that 150,000 percent of me is behind it. I do think the beauty and wellness space is somewhere that I continuously feel passionate about, but I’m still so focused on Rhode, and all my attention is there.
It’s still very pinch-me. I was walking into Sushi Park last night and it was so ridiculous. It was like, there was the Sephora one here, and the DKNY one, and then the Chase one right behind it. And I was like, What is going on right now? It still is very Wow, that’s so cool. And a proud moment for me. I don’t think it does ever get old, to be honest.
Samuel Hine is GQ’s global fashion correspondent.
This interview has been condensed and edited from a video you can see here.
A version of this story originally appeared in the December 2025/January 2026 issue of GQ with the title “Hailey Bieber: Tycoon of the Year”.
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Portfolio by Tyrell Hampton
Styled by George Cortina
Hair by Irinel De León
Makeup by Mary Phillips
Nails by Zola Ganzorigt at The Wall Group using Opi
Tailoring by Yelena Travkina
Set design by Heath Mattioli
Produced by Camp Productions
Photographed on location at Chateau Marmont
