Lady Gaga Is Now Haus Labs' CEO. Celebrity Beauty Brands Are Splitting Into Owners and Closures.

Lady Gaga is no longer just the face of Haus Labs. She is running it. The singer has taken over as chief executive of her beauty brand "effective immediately," replacing co-founder and CEO Ben Jones, who left the business this month, Cosmetics Business reported, following a Business of Fashion scoop. She keeps creative direction and product development and now owns the commercial side too.

Most celebrity beauty founders go the other way. They lend their name, take a creative title and let operators run the company. Gaga's move lands in a year when that model is splitting cleanly in two. Some celebrity brands are selling for a billion dollars, and others are quietly shutting down.

Why Did Lady Gaga Take Over as Haus Labs CEO?

The company has not spelled it out, but the timing follows a rough stretch. In June, creator Golloria George criticized the shade range of Haus Labs' Sun Dipped Bronzing Veil. "Gaga, Haus Labs, you guys usually do not miss. Did something change on the team?" she asked, according to Complex. The brand then asked her to take her review down.

Four months later Gaga signed a personal apology. "I truly apologise to Golloria and the community for where we fell short," she wrote, and the brand said asking George to remove her post "was unkind and not at all how a creator or any customer's voice should ever be treated," Cosmetics Business reported. The bronzer went from six shades to 11. "We will work hard to make sure it never happens again. Personally, I will see to it," she added, per IBTimes UK. Weeks later, she took the CEO title.

The episode is a clean lesson in where power sits in beauty now. One creator with a phone made a global pop star's brand reformulate a product line. A founder who wants to answer for that directly has a reason to be in the CEO seat.

What Separates a Billion-Dollar Celebrity Brand From a Closure?

A founder who shows up, and a product people buy twice. The clearest win is Hailey Bieber's Rhode. e.l.f. Beauty agreed last year to pay up to US$1 billion for it, US$800 million at closing plus an earnout of up to US$200 million, on US$212 million in trailing sales, according to e.l.f.'s announcement. Bieber stayed on as founder, chief creative officer and head of innovation.

The bet has paid off for e.l.f. Rhode has outperformed the earnout targets, triggering a US$57.6 million adjustment in e.l.f.'s fiscal 2026 results because of "the outperformance of rhode's revenue results." Without Rhode, e.l.f.'s organic growth was just 2% in one recent quarter, Glossy reported. "Rhode's growth has been phenomenal, outpacing anyone's expectations," said CEO Tarang Amin. Canadians helped. Rhode launched in every Sephora in the US and Canada in September 2025.

The other half of the list is longer. Gwen Stefani's Gxve, Drew Barrymore's Flower Beauty and Kate Moss's Cosmoss have all closed, and Cosmetics Business asked this year whether the category's "once rock-steady foundation" is crumbling. Scarlett Johansson's skincare brand The Outset wound down in September after its co-founder left and a fractional CEO ran it for its final months, according to People. Brands "are being squeezed from every direction," the trade outlet noted in its closures tracker.

Are Celebrity Founders Taking Back Control?

The smart ones are keeping equity and a job. Huda Kattan bought out private equity firm TSG Consumer's stake to own Huda Beauty outright again, calling it "a deeply very important moment for me," Cosmetics Business reported. Rihanna is keeping her half of Fenty Beauty as LVMH looks to exit, with a firm linked to Jay-Z reportedly close to buying LVMH's 50% stake, according to TheGrio. That deal is reported, not confirmed.

The Canadian example is not even a beauty brand. Canadian actor Shay Mitchell sold 85% of her travel brand Béis to Samsonite for US$178.5 million, valuing it at about US$210 million, while keeping 15% and her role as founder and head of creative, FashionUnited reported. Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty took a different route and expanded into more than 1,500 Ulta stores in February, according to a company release.

What Should Creators Learn From Haus Labs?

Fame gets a brand on the shelf. It does not keep it there. The celebrity brands still winning are run by founders who treat them as businesses, stay close to their customers and listen when a creator calls them out. Five of the top 10 beauty brands by creator marketing are celebrity-founded, Fortune found, but the ranking measures how creators talk about a brand, not whether the founder's name is on the box.

For creators thinking about their own product line, the lesson works in both directions. Your audience is the asset, and an audience can turn on you just as fast as it buys from you, as Haus Labs found out. Gaga now has the title that comes with that responsibility. Whether a global touring artist can run a beauty company day to day is the open question, and the next few product launches will answer it.