Kylie Jenner just lost her billionaire status – but we don’t think she’s about to lose any sleep over it.
In 2014, The youngest among the Kardashian-Jenner sisters immediately became the richest of the six siblings after launching Kylie Cosmetics.
After that, the 22-year-old businesswoman was then seeing dollar signs like never before when she successfully sold 51% of her business to beauty giant Coty in January this year, in a deal that is reported to be valued at $1.2 billion.
In the month of March this year, Kylie was officially declared a billionaire by Forbes.
However, after looking deeply into the fine print of the deal, Forbes is now reporting that Kylie Cosmetics is actually a lot smaller and less financially profitable than the family have led people to believe.
According to Forbes, the Kardashian-Jenner clan has gone as far as making tax returns likely to be forged in a desperate move to look richer than they actually are.point 415 |
Taking all of these details into account, and with the impact that the current global health crisis has had on the beauty industry, it’s extremely likely that Kylie is in fact not a billionaire at all.point 168 | point 168 | 1
Just a few moments after the product launch in November 2015, Kylie’s $29 lip kits had all already sold out, and before 2016 ends, the teen entrepreneur had secured a reputation as a huge contender in the cosmetic industry.
Following Kim Kardashian’s Forbes cover the same year, the family is reported to embark on a mission to get Kylie a cover of her own, telling the publication Kylie Cosmetic revenues reach $400 million in the first 18 months, with an eye-watering take-home of $250 million for Kylie.
In the year 2016, ‘momager’ Kris Jenner apparently showed a tax return to Forbes detailing $307 million in revenues and personal income of more than $110 million for Kylie that year. This would’ve put Kylie at number two on the Celebrity 100 list, just behind Taylor Swift, but something just didn’t add up.
A number of analysts together with Forbes all agreed to the idea that it would be impossible to go from nothing to $300 million in sales in just a year, and so they tried to place her at a more realistic estimate of 59 on the 100 celebrity rich list of 2017, with earnings of $41 million.
By the year 2018, the Jenners claimed Kylie Cosmetics was bringing in a revenue of $420 million, a number which analysts called as ‘totally possible’ given the popularity of the brand at that point in time. In July of the same year, the family got what they wanted as Kylie, aged 20, was placed on the front cover of Forbes magazine and hailed as 27th on its list of richest self-made women.
Forbes recalled:
“At age 20, she was worth $900 million, we estimated, and would soon become the youngest self-made billionaire ever.”
The true finances of Kylie Cosmetics were revealed in the Coty presentation following their purchase of 51% of the company.
Based on the presentation, revenues over a 12-month period preceding the deal were $177 million; an amount much lower than the published estimates at the time. In fact, Coty revealed sales reach up to 40% from 2018, but business had only generated around $125 million that year, which is far from the $360 million claimed by the Jenners.
Although Forbes still can’t prove that the documents were wrong, they say it’s very likely Jenners have been lying to inflate their business the entire time. It also said Kylie’s business suffered a 62% decline in online sales between 2016 and 2018.