Forbes Decides Kylie Jenner Is Not a Billionaire

Kylie Jenner, formerly crowned the youngest self-made billionaire in America by Forbes, has been outed as a non-billionaire by none other than Forbes itself.

In a detailed report, Forbes breaks down how Jenner lied about the success of her cosmetics company for years. Make no mistake, Jenner is not suddenly poor. She is simply less rich than Forbes was led to believe, which seems to have upset the publication, as is evident in the tone of their report, which states:

Of course white lies, omissions and outright fabrications are to be expected from the family that perfected—then monetized—the concept of “famous for being famous.” But, similar to Donald Trump’s decades-long obsession with his net worth, the unusual lengths to which the Jenners have been willing to go—including inviting Forbes into their mansions and CPA’s offices, and even creating tax returns that were likely forged—reveals just how desperate some of the ultra-rich are to look even richer.

That faint sound you hear is the sound of laughter from all the people who spent years claiming Kylie’s lip kits were just an upsold dupe of ColourPop Cosmetics formula, only to be silenced by Kardashian-Jenner stans. Somewhere, Kris Jenner weeps.

The crown jewel in Kylie Jenner’s empire, Kylie Cosmetics, was reportedly sold to Coty in a deal that was valued at over $1 billion. But according to Forbes, public filings from Coty showed that Kylie Cosmetics wasn’t as profitable as the cosmetics industry had been led to believe. The deal that was supposed to solidify Jenner’s place amongst the billionaire elite appears to only have made her a few hundred million dollars. Not only does Forbes staunchly believe Jenner was never a billionaire, to begin with, but the report also delves into the lengths the Kardashian-Jenner clan went to in order to “get Kylie a Forbes cover.”

Kris Jenner, along with Jenners’ publicists, launched a cover campaign for Kylie in 2016 that brought Forbes reporters into Kylie’s home to speak with her accountants. Reporters were “shown tax returns detailing $307 million in 2016 revenues and personal income of more than $110 million for Kylie that year.” Numbers like that were supposed to land her on the Forbes 100 list at No. 2, but despite the documents, it seemed implausible to experts that Kylie Cosmetics grew “from nothing to $300 million in sales in a single year.” Kylie, who was vying for a top spot on the list, would land at No. 59 in 2017, to her and her mother’s dismay.

Two months later, Kylie Cosmetics’ apparently inflated numbers appeared in Women’s Wear Daily, using the same documentation that had been provided to Forbes. But once the Coty sale was made final, reality started to land for the reality star. The revenue numbers for 2018 were so much lower than the “published estimates” that Forbes concluded, “there’s virtually no way the numbers the Jenners were peddling in earlier years could be true either.”

Kylie’s response:

As shockingly not shocking as this report is—that the Jenners may have lied to make themselves look better—Forbes does note that they cannot prove the tax returns were forged, but that a forgery was “likely.” Financial experts believe the Jenners have been lying since 2016, as there is no plausible way a business could have “collapsed by so much so quickly” and there’s no evidence to suggest the business has failed. Even after the lies and the recalculations of Kylie’s wealth, Forbes estimates that the youngest of the original Jenner fame horde is worth “just under $900 million.” I cannot wait to tell my mother how wrong she was for telling me all those years it doesn’t pay to lie.