
Remember when you had to actually do something to be rich and/or famous, like sing, dance, act, be phenomenal at sports, or pick the right combination of two digit numbers? Well the Kardashian family has made an incredibly lucrative business out of exaggerating their personal lives, fertility and minor weight fluctuations. According to a new profile in The Hollywood Reporter, the family made $65 million dollars last year. Let’s say that number was provided by Kris to overestimate her family’s worth. We’ve heard that Kim makes about $35,000 just to show up to an event, but in this new article they estimate her appearance fee at $100,000 to $250,000. On an average week she can do two to three appearances. At 2 appearances per week that’s about $11 million dollars without even accounting for her endorsement deals. Add in all the other family members and whatever they make for their reality shows, merchandising (clothing, jewelry, perfume, etc), interviews and general famewhoring, and that ridiculous $65 million number, more than top celebrities make combined, sounds about right.
They made more money than Jolie, Bullock and Cruise combined
Since their arrival on E! in 2007, thanks to such no-boundaries behavior, the tightknit family has ably defied the laws of 15-minute reality TV fame while building a wildly profitable empire. As the cameras keep rolling on the eight-member clan’s topsy-turvy domestic life, the Kardashians have cashed in, making more money last year than what Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock and Tom Cruise are estimated to have earned combined: a staggering $65 million (a source close to the family confirms the figure). As manager, Kris Jenner personally takes 10 percent.
And in perhaps the most Platonic exploitation of the celebrity-industrial complex, they didn’t do it by picking up paychecks from a network or studio alone. Deploying sibling after sibling, the household, led by Kris, has crafted a wholly modern business model for making money. It’s one that emphasizes accesibility over harnesses three commercial components: fan interaction via social media (the family has a collective 13 million Twitter followers); best-selling products and brand endorsements; and, of course, that hyper-successful reality franchise (Season 5 of E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians averaged 3.5 million viewers a week).
In a year when men and women in the entertainment industry with business backgrounds couldn’t turn a profit, Kris Jenner could — even if critics ponder what, if any, redeeming value her family brings.
On Kim’s sex tape propelling her family into fame
It was February 2007 when Kris’ second oldest, Kim — then best known as socialite Paris Hilton’s perpetual sidekick — sat her mom down for a confession: She had made a sex tape with her then-boyfriend, musician Ray J. brother of singer Brandy. The kicker? A third party had sold the tape to adult video distributor Vivid Entertainment, and it would be going on sale at the end of the month. The celebrity press soon exploded with every last graphic detail of what the tape contained.
The timing could not have been worse. Inspired by the success of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s family, Kris independently produced a presentation tape of a reality show following her family and had recently begun shopping it to different production companies.
“I thought, ‘Oh well, there goes the reality show,’ ” she say. But you can either be a problem maker or a problem solver. And I’m a problem solver. My job as her mom and manager is to take care of the problem — whatever it is. I had to cry and get upset in the privacy of my own room and then come out and help her, because she’s my daughter. What good is it for me to berate her?”
Claiming to have never seen the tape, Kris hired a crisis communications expert to help navigate the scandal. “I was way out of my league,” she says. “I would never think I knew enough to care for a situation like that. What’s that Kenny Rogers line? ‘You got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.’ All I knew was that I had to make some lemonade out of these lemons fast. Real fast.”
The fact that Vivid had to pay Kim a figure that’s been reported at $5 million is almost beside the point. The sex tape — one of Vivid’s best-selling DVDs in 10 years — put the Kardashians on the map.
“My job was trying to take my kids’ 15 minutes and turn it into 30,” Kris recalls. Shortly afterward, her entire family would have to get comfortable in front of the camera.
[From The Hollywood Reporter]
Here’s the thing about Kim’s sex tape. It may have been upsetting to her family at first that it got out, but The Hollywood Reporter completely glosses over the fact that Kris could just have easily hired a lawyer to block it. She didn’t have to hire a “crisis communications expert” after taking the millions Vivid offered. In fact it sounds like Kris is pretty happy it turned out the way it did because she was able to parlay her daughters sex on tape into tens of millions more.
The article in The Hollywood Reporter is pretty fascinating. It would be hard to cover all the points they make about the family and how they’re raking it it, but it’s worth noting that they’re one of the first reality show families to really resonate with the public since The Osbournes. It seems like everyone and their brother has a reality show, but the Kardashians are really unique in that they have no shame and promote the hell out of themselves.
On a final note, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the “lemonade” quote and how it might ironically pertain to certain sex acts rumored to be depicted on Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. I’ve heard that Kim’s tape doesn’t contain anything other than typical sex and that a rumored final shower scene, if it was ever in the tape, was cut before the final release. Kris may have heard those rumors but she supposedly hasn’t watched the video. She should watch it. She owes a lot to Kim’s indiscretion and is responsible for instilling those values in her daughters that would make a sex tape seem like a business opportunity. Her family’s most redeeming quality is their shamelessness.
Photos are from 2/14 and 2/16. Credit: WENN.com



