Celebrity Business Moves This Week: Rare Beauty Makes History, Gigi Hadid Returns and Stars Invest Smarter
- Jessica Ramirez
- Jul 18
- 6 min read
Discover this week’s biggest celebrity business moves, from Rare Beauty’s first celebrity ambassador and Gigi Hadid’s Victoria’s Secret return to strategic investments involving Alix Earle, Jon Bon Jovi and other famous entrepreneurs.
Fame Is Still Fabulous, but Ownership Is Better
Celebrities are no longer satisfied with smiling beside a product, collecting a check and disappearing before the campaign’s complimentary snacks are gone. This week’s celebrity business moves show famous founders, performers, models and creators becoming more strategic about how they use their names.
They're accepting ambassador roles, investing in growing companies, strengthening established brands and turning cultural influence into long-term business value. In other words, the red carpet now leads directly to the boardroom—and apparently the boardroom has excellent lighting.
Rare Beauty Selects Its First Celebrity Ambassador
Rare Beauty reached an important milestone this week by naming Off Campus star Ella Bright as its first celebrity ambassador outside of founder Selena Gomez. The 19-year-old actor is leading the playful “Made You Blush” campaign for the company’s popular Soft Pinch Liquid Blush. The partnership connects one of beauty’s most recognizable celebrity-founded brands with an emerging performer who already has a strong relationship with its audience and products.
Ella Bright Brings Fresh Energy to Selena Gomez’s Brand
Choosing Bright is a clever move because Rare Beauty is not simply borrowing a famous face—it is introducing a new personality who fits the brand’s youthful, candid and community-focused identity. Bright has said she was already a fan of Rare Beauty and began using its blush in 2020, making the collaboration feel more natural than the classic “I discovered this product approximately seven minutes before the photo shoot” endorsement. The campaign also maintains a connection to Rare Beauty’s wider mission of supporting conversations about mental health, giving the partnership substance alongside all the very photogenic blush.
Gigi Hadid Is Returning to the Victoria’s Secret Runway
Gigi Hadid has been confirmed for the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which will move from New York to Los Angeles. The company announced the new location on July 16, although the exact show date and musical performers had not been revealed at the time of publication. Hadid promoted her return through a playful social-media video, immediately giving the event the kind of attention most marketing departments would happily trade several conference rooms and one overworked intern to obtain.
Victoria’s Secret Is Combining Nostalgia With Modern Star Power
Hadid’s return is more than a runway booking. It gives Victoria’s Secret a familiar global personality who connects the company’s famous fashion-show history with today’s social-media-driven entertainment market. Moving the production to Los Angeles also places the event closer to the machinery of celebrity culture, film, music and influencer marketing. The strategy is straightforward but effective... combine recognizable talent, a spectacle-friendly location and enough wings to make airport security nervous.
Alix Earle and Jon Bon Jovi Turn Investment Into a Campaign
Energy-drink company GORGIE recently launched a strategic investor campaign featuring social-media personality and entrepreneur Alix Earle alongside music icon Jon Bon Jovi. Both celebrities are investors in the company, which means they are not merely appearing in an advertisement and politely pretending to care about quarterly growth.
Their financial interests are connected to the brand’s success, creating a deeper relationship between celebrity promotion and company performance.
The Investor-Spokesperson Model Keeps Getting Stronger
The GORGIE campaign illustrates one of the most significant trends in celebrity business: the investor is becoming the spokesperson, and the spokesperson is becoming the investor. Earle joined the company as a strategic investor in December 2025, while Bon Jovi reportedly followed in April 2026. The campaign brings them together under GORGIE’s “Energy for All” message, using Earle’s connection to digital audiences and Bon Jovi’s multigenerational recognition to broaden the brand’s appeal. It is essentially a business presentation with better hair.
Celebrity Equity Is Replacing the Ordinary Endorsement Deal
This shift is happening across consumer industries, particularly in wellness, food, beverages, fashion and beauty. Instead of receiving only a flat promotional fee, celebrities are increasingly taking ownership stakes that allow them to participate in a company’s future growth. That arrangement can benefit both parties... the brand gains attention, distribution power and cultural relevance, while the celebrity gains potential long-term financial upside. Naturally, equity also means assuming risk, which is considerably less glamorous than holding a beverage can in slow motion—but far more meaningful as a business strategy.
Phoebe Gates and Phia Demonstrate the Importance of a Fast Course Correction
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni’s AI-powered shopping platform Phia also remained in the business headlines after facing questions about how its browser extension attributed affiliate sales. Reports alleged that the extension had claimed credit for some purchases it may not have generated. Phia attributed the problem to a coding issue associated with a recent release and said the issue was corrected.
A Business Challenge Can Become a Trust-Building Opportunity
No founder dreams of seeing phrases such as “affiliate attribution problem” beside their company’s name during breakfast. Nevertheless, the way a young company responds to scrutiny can become an important part of its development. Phia now has an opportunity to strengthen its technical controls, clarify its commission practices and demonstrate that rapid growth can be accompanied by transparency. The company has attracted significant attention as an AI shopping startup, and navigating this moment responsibly could help it mature from a buzzy platform into a more trusted retail-technology business.
Paris Hilton and Toni Laites Add Gloss to a Major Beauty Campaign
Reality television personality Toni Laites reportedly secured a six-figure agreement to serve as the UK face of a NYX Professional Makeup campaign featuring Paris Hilton. Launched on July 15, the collaboration places Laites alongside Hilton’s “Gloss Boss” persona and represents a major commercial step for the former Love Island winner. The partnership demonstrates how reality television can function as a launchpad for substantial brand work when a contestant develops a distinctive personality and maintains audience engagement after leaving the villa.
Reality Stars Are Becoming Serious Brand Assets
Laites’ deal is another reminder that today’s celebrity economy is not limited to film stars, chart-topping musicians and supermodels. Reality personalities and online creators often arrive with something brands value enormously: a highly engaged audience that feels personally connected to them. That relationship can produce campaigns that seem more immediate and conversational than traditional advertising. It also proves that leaving a reality show with a strong personal brand may be more valuable than leaving with the romantic relationship. But let us allow the reunion episode to handle that discussion.
Olivier Rousteing Begins a Major New Fashion Chapter at Rabanne
Although Olivier Rousteing is best known as a fashion designer rather than a conventional celebrity entrepreneur, his appointment as Rabanne’s creative director is unquestionably a major star-powered business move. Rousteing spent approximately 14 years leading Balmain and built a highly visible, celebrity-connected identity around the fashion house. His first Rabanne collection is expected to debut during Paris Fashion Week in March 2027.
Rabanne Is Hiring Creative Talent and an Audience
Rousteing brings more than design expertise to Rabanne. He also brings millions of social-media followers, strong celebrity relationships and experience turning fashion into a global entertainment conversation. Rabanne already possesses a valuable heritage, recognizable metallic designs and a powerful fragrance business. Adding Rousteing suggests that the company wants to connect those assets through a louder and more unified fashion-and-beauty identity. Hiring a creative director with his visibility is not simply a staffing decision; it is a marketing strategy wearing an extremely expensive jacket.
The most interesting theme this week is not merely that celebrities are signing more deals. It's that the structure of those deals is becoming more sophisticated. Ella Bright is helping Rare Beauty introduce a new era of ambassadors. Gigi Hadid is bringing established star power to a returning global spectacle. Alix Earle and Jon Bon Jovi are promoting a company in which they have invested. Toni Laites is converting reality-TV visibility into a significant beauty partnership, while Olivier Rousteing is bringing both creative leadership and audience reach to Rabanne.
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References
Cosmopolitan, “Off Campus Star Ella Bright Is Rare Beauty’s First-Ever Celebrity Ambassador,” July 2026.
People, “Off Campus Star Ella Bright Is Rare Beauty’s First-Ever Ambassador in New Blush Campaign,” July 2026.
People, “Everything to Know About the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show,” July 2026.
GORGIE/PR Newswire, “GORGIE Launches New Strategic Investor Campaign Featuring Alix Earle and Jon Bon Jovi,” July 9, 2026.
The Grocer, “How Celebrity Brand Deals Really Work in 2026,” May 2026.
New Hope Network, “Celebrity Money Is Remaking the Natural Products Industry,” July 2026.
TechCrunch, “Phia Accused of ‘Cookie Stuffing,’ Taking Affiliate Credit on Purchases It Didn’t Earn,” July 2026.
Engadget, “Phoebe Gates’ AI Shopping App Phia Reportedly Claimed Unearned Affiliate Sales Through Fake Clicks,” July 2026.
The Scottish Sun, “Love Island’s Toni Lands Six-Figure Deal Working With Paris Hilton,” July 2026.
Vogue, “Rabanne Names Olivier Rousteing Creative Director,” July 2026.
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