Dame Pat McGrath Built a Beauty Empire — Did She Just File for Bankruptcy?

In December 2020, British makeup artist Pat McGrath became the first person in her industry to receive a damehood from the Queen.

This was the culmination of a career that spanned three decades and often broke barriers and boundaries. According to The Guardian, Dame McGrath is often described as the world's most influential makeup artist.

Five years prior, Pat launched her brand, Pat McGraph Labs, which was valued at $1 billion by 2019. In an Instagram post about receiving her damehood, Pat said she was humbled by this honor.

Never in her wildest dreams could she have conceived of the Queen recognizing her life's work. Six years later, the company was filing for bankruptcy. What is McGrath's net worth? Here's what we know.

Dame McGrath is reportedly worth $100 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. By all accounts, she had a meteoric rise in the world of beauty. She was born in Northampton, England, and has Jamaican descent.

Following one year at Northampton College, where she took an art foundation course, Pat moved to London. It's worth noting that this course did not include anything about fashion or beauty.

Once she landed in London in the late 1980s, Pat began working with designers such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, per The Cut. This is also when she met photographer Craig McDean, fashion editor Edward Enninful, and hairstylists Guido Palau and Eugene Souleiman.

Pat would pop down to Paris in order to sneak into fashion shows. "I remember we had a fake Vogue ID," she recalled.

When grunge overtook the '90s, Pat was less than impressed with the mess, dirty, stripped-down looks that she found on the runway.

When Enninful hired her to do the makeup for an i-D magazine shoot, Pat boldly announced she wanted to do yellow eyebrows. That was the start of her time as a trendsetter, not a follower.

From 2004 until 2014, Pat worked at Procter & Gamble, where she took home an annual salary of $1 million. She left in 2015 to start her own brand. A decade later, there was talk of bankruptcy, but that was put on hold, per Allure.

They filed for Chapter 11 and were scheduled to be sold at an asset sale on Jan. 27, 2026, but that is on hold.

"Pat McGrath Labs announced that it has commenced a financial restructuring under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code," said the company in a statement to Allure. "The Company’s secured lender’s scheduled auction for Company assets has been postponed indefinitely."

The organization's launch started with their famous multi-purpose gold paint, and they are determined to stick around a bit longer.