Forbes Is Saying That Kylie Jenner Lied About Being A Billionaire And People Are Not Surprised
The Kardashians and Jenners are never far from the social media buzz. It seems like one of them is always in the middle of some sort of deep scandal or drama. And this news is no different.
Forbes has released an article stating that Kylie Jenner is not in fact a Billionaire and all about the web of lies that have led up to this moment.
Kylie Jenner, sold 51% of her Kylie Cosmetics to beauty giant Coty in a deal valued at $1.2 billion this January, becoming one of the greatest celebrity cash-outs of all time. And this has raised some eyebrows.
This transaction seemed to confirm what Kylie has been saying and what Forbes had declared in March 2019: that Kylie Jenner was, indeed, a billionaire.
But in the deal’s fine print, a shattering truth emerged. Filings released by publicly traded Coty company over the past six months have now released one of the family’s best-kept secrets.
Kylie’s business is significantly smaller, and less profitable, than the family has spent years leading the cosmetics industry and media outlets, including Forbes, to believe. There have been may projections on what they “expected” to make, but not what they actually did receive.
Of course, tiny little lies here and there are to be expected from the family. The concept of “famous for being famous” has always lingered, giving them a little more “wiggle room” to get away with such things.
But the unusual lengths to which the Kardashians and Jenners have been willing to, including inviting Forbes into their mansions, CPA’s offices, and even creating tax returns (that are suspected to be forged), reveals just how some of the ultra-rich are trying to look even richer.
“It’s fair to say that everything the Kardashian-Jenner family does is oversized,” says Stephanie Wissink, an equity analyst covering consumer products at Jefferies. “To stay on-brand, it needs to be bigger than it is.”
Kylie’s business began as a way to cash in on a minor scandal. She spent more than a year denying tabloid speculation that she was using lip filler injections before eventually coming clean about it in May 2015. She then, being led by her mother Kris, seized it as a marketing opportunity.
With $250,000 of her earnings from modeling, endorsements and Keeping Up With The Kardashians appearances, Kylie launched her first batch of 15,000 lip kits, consisting of a lip liner and matching lipstick, in November 2015.
Thanks to clever Instagram marketing, the $29 kits were gone in less than a minute. “Before I even refreshed the page, everything was sold out,” she later told Forbes.
By the summer of 2018, when Forbes set out to calculate Kylie’s net worth for their list of the richest self-made women, the industry’s opinion of Kylie’s business had shifted. Everyone believed that she was on the fast track to become a millionaire. Some fans even created fundraisers to help her get there.
Based on her rapid success that was certified by industry sources, plus her 2016 tax returns (which are now being questioned), Kylie appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine in July 2018, ranking No. 27 on the listing of the richest self-made women. At age 20, she was worth $900 million, and was estimated to become the youngest self-made billionaire ever.
But according to the current information Forbes has obtained, they believe that Kylie has never hit the billionaire status and that her and her mother have been lying about their income since this all began in 2016.
What are your thoughts?
