Forbes: Kylie Jenner lied & forged documents to hype Kylie Cosmetics’ sales

MAGIC  Convention August 2019- Day 2 - Las Vegas

On Friday, Forbes dropped an incredible bombshell: Kylie Jenner is not a billionaire. Not only that, but Forbes had the RECEIPTS on how the Kardashian-Jenners falsified tax returns and business records to hype Kylie Cosmetics for years ahead of KC’s sale to Coty last year. Forbes originally declared Kylie to be a billionaire last year, when Coty purchased 51% of the company for $600 million, meaning that KC was valued at the time at $1.2 billion. Plus, before Coty’s purchase, it was widely assumed – especially given the data provided by the Kardashian-Jenners – that Kylie, as sole owner of KC, had been raking in tens of millions in profit for years because of her overpriced lip kits. Now Forbes says that Kylie has been completely misrepresenting the size of her business, the profit from KC and the sales figures in general for years. You can read the full Forbes piece here. Here’s just a chunk:

But in the [Coty] deal’s fine print, a less flattering truth emerged. Filings released by publicly traded Coty over the past six months lay bare 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.

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.

Based on this new information—plus the impact of Covid-19 on beauty stocks and consumer spending—Forbes now thinks that Kylie Jenner, even after pocketing an estimated $340 million after taxes from the sale, is not a billionaire.

[After the Coty deal was made], there were Kylie’s financials. Revenues over a 12-month period preceding the deal: $177 million, according to the Coty presentation—far lower than the published estimates at the time. More problematic, Coty said that sales were up 40% from 2018, meaning the business only generated about $125 million that year, nowhere near the $360 million the Jenners had led Forbes to believe. Kylie’s skin care line, which launched in May 2019, did $100 million in revenues in its first month and a half, Kylie’s reps told us. The filings show the line was actually “on track” to finish the year with just $25 million in sales.

“I think everybody was surprised,” says Wissink, the Jefferies analyst, who was on the call. “The negative that came out of that announcement was that the business was a lot smaller than everybody had expected.” So much smaller, in fact, that there’s virtually no way the numbers the Jenners were peddling in earlier years could be true either. If Kylie Cosmetics did $125 million in sales in 2018, how could it have done $307 million in 2016 (as the company’s supposed tax returns state) or $330 million in 2017?

The more likely explanation: The business was never that big to begin with, and the Jenners have lied about it every year since 2016—including having their accountant draft tax returns with false numbers—to help juice Forbes’ estimates of Kylie’s earnings and net worth. While we can’t prove that those documents were fake (though it’s likely), it’s clear that Kylie’s camp has been lying.

[From Forbes]

Personally, I think it’s idiotic to go to these lengths – if Forbes is correct in their analysis – just to hype the hell out of a profitable, successful business to the point where they’re forging documents. It’s not like the Jenners were actually hiding corporate malfeasance or losses – they were forging documentation so that Forbes would say Kylie was a billionaire. Kylie Cosmetics was actually a successful business and Kylie was raking in millions of dollars of profit, but she just wanted KC to look like it was twice as profitable as it actually was. Of course, all of that hype also helped Kylie sell a controlling stake in KC in a deal which is looking more and more like a poor investment, or simply an overpriced investment.

Still, the thing is… Kylie is still rich as hell. Forbes says that using the new data and assumptions from Coty, they figure that Kylie is worth “just under $900 million.” For the love of God. They also say that, of course, the business is down because of the pandemic and that’s affecting all of their predictors too.

Anyway, Kylie and Kris Jenner are reportedly “freaking out” and their lawyer dropped this:

“We have reviewed Forbes’ article accusing Kylie of engaging in deceit and a ‘web of lies’ to inflate her net worth. The article is filled with outright lies,” the lawyer, Michael Kump, said in a statement to The Post on Friday. “Forbes’ accusation that Kylie and her accountants ‘forged tax returns’ is unequivocally false and we are demanding that Forbes immediately and publicly retract that and other statements. It is sad that, of all things, Forbes has devoted three reporters to investigate the effect of the coronavirus crisis on Kylie’s net worth. We would not expect that from a supermarket tabloid, much less from Forbes.”

Forbes said it stands by its story. “Today’s extensively-reported investigation was triggered by newly-filed documents that revealed glaring discrepancies between information privately supplied to journalists and information publicly supplied to shareholders,” said Forbes spokesman Matthew Hutchison. “Our reporters spotted the inaccuracies and spent months uncovering the facts.”

[From Page Six]

I don’t know, I believe Forbes. I think Forbes’ original billionaire claims had some educated-guesswork, and so does this new report. It sounds like the Forbes reporters were genuinely shocked by Coty’s filings and they just decided to dig deeper. Kylie also had to tweet something. Again, we’re talking about the difference between “Kylie is worth $1.2 billion” versus “Kylie is worth $900 million.” At some point, it’s really f–king tacky to complain about this sh-t.

Kylie Jenner arrives at the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party held at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the...

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red, Backgrid and Forbes.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

106 Responses to “Forbes: Kylie Jenner lied & forged documents to hype Kylie Cosmetics’ sales”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Oatmeal says:

    Grifters gonna grift

  2. Ronaldinhio says:

    I know you’ll all disagree with me but I don’t think Kylie was interested in this
    It has PMK’s fingerprints all over it

    • jenner says:

      Have you not seen her smug cover on Forbes? She’s just as opportunistic as all of them.

    • Chaine says:

      @Ronaldinho ITA. There is no way Kylie really has any meaningful role in the financial workings or documents of her corporation. I’m pretty sure all she does is swan in and out of her office in super-sexy suits and try on the lipsticks before getting done up for her daily insta shot. If pinned down, she would not be able to explain to you the difference between a millionaire or a billionaire, much less anything to do with taxes or accounting.

      • Lizzie says:

        You don’t get to be worth $900 milion by being dumb or uninvolved in your company.
        Kris is definitely the brains behind all of the Jenner/Kardashian business’s but Kylie has far out done the rest of them.

      • lisa says:

        Lizzie, Kylie tests lip gloss samples and dresses herself for photo shoots. She doesn’t do any tax returns, meetings with Forbes, meetings with her accountants….all the business is Pimp Mama Kris.

      • Karen says:

        I think that Kylie can barely read. I dont think she is the brains behind the operation.

      • sneakers says:

        I think the Forbes article pretty much said it was all probably PMK’s doing anyway.

    • anna says:

      yeah. I remember the first article in WWD, called ”billion dollar baby” or something with kris and kylie on the cover. it was so obvious they were looking for a buyer. took a bit longer and another cover, but pmk succeeded eventually. coty should have known better. how many brands and products did the kardashians put out in all these years and how much of that was of lasting value? this family is about the short term grift not building and sustaining something long term.

      • I am Mimi says:

        If they provided fudged numbers to Coty, that is fraud, not just “fibbing.” It is likely that Coty knew about the real numbers and hoped that the hype would drive business up, but it not, this could be a real problem for Kris and Kylie.

    • Dilettante says:

      Who is PMK?

  3. Yoyo says:

    Forbes was taken as gospel for a long time, I’m sure they called trump a billionaire also, now most of the people dispute the net worth that Forbes assign them, saying the numbers are exaggerated.

    • Mumbles says:

      Forbes is a joke. They could have figured out she was full of it by looking at comparable financial data of other, real cosmetic companies. At best she has a lucrative licensing agreement with an existing importer of those kits. Forbes was more interested in a buzzy story that would get everyone talking.

      A lot of these celebrity businesspeople have only licensing agreements. Hey, no shame in that and I wish I was famous enough to have one! But stop it with the “Jessica Simpson is a business mogul” stuff. She has an agreement with a clothing company to put her name on some of their items.

    • sneakers says:

      i don’t think Forbes did anything wrong in assuming tax returns by licensed accountants would be not be falsified, IF they were in fact falsified as Forbes believes most likely. Their rich lists are their flagship product as a media company and widely reported by business publications. They don’t eff around with those rich lists.

  4. Gil says:

    She did only inflate her lips, she also inflate her net worth? Really this family proves to be made of lies in every aspect of their lives^_^

  5. Tonode says:

    I wonder if she’ll do any jail time for forging government documents.

    • Eliza_ says:

      These would be documents given to Forbes, not the ones given to IRS… no one would tell the IRS they made more money. The only legal issue is if Coty bought the company based on the same exaggerated figures, as that is illegal.

      The sum of $600mil was not confirmed publicly by Coty, so in truth that may too be a lie and they bought it for what it’s really worth.

      • enike says:

        Eliza, exactly
        IRS and Coty got the real documents and numbers (as I cant believe Coty doesnt have financial analysts and legal team who would not spot any inaccuracy with the documents and wouldnt do a due reaserch with an acquisition as big)
        Forbes didnt do any research and eat up any numbers mama Kris told them, how embarassing for Forbes
        Edit: for Coty it was actually a good advertisement that Forbes hyped the numbers of the sale, thats why they didnt deny it, IMHO

      • lucy2 says:

        I would hope Coty got the real numbers for that deal, otherwise it could be a very serious and costly situation for all parties.

        I agree this is likely all PMK, and how pathetic – don’t be proud of your kid for (using their built-in fame and money) to have a successful company, but lie, and force others to lie, for a stupid title on a magazine most people don’t care about.

      • Justme says:

        Coty is a publicly traded company. They paid $590M for the brand. The information is accessible to the public.

  6. girl_ninja says:

    Ahhh haaa!

    Imagine that? Lying about your worth.

  7. minx says:

    The SEC doesn’t play around. And her tweets sounded moronic.

    • Jules says:

      Yup, bad move on her part saying she didn’t ask for this. Yet she had no problem posing for and being interviewed for Forbes. Eye roll.

  8. P says:

    Why is she always holding her boobs in pics?

  9. Greatgift says:

    I don’t even know what to say since I’m not even worth $100k but I want to ask can she be jailed for this if found to be true

  10. Becky says:

    This family continues to disgust me. Stay tuned. This is just the beginning. I foresee IRS audits for the whole clan.

    • Greatgift says:

      I hope this really happens including Kanye too

      • Mel says:

        @greatgift- me too! I don’t understand how a man who was pleading with people to invest in him and to download his album and app, saying he was over 50 million dollars in debt all the sudden went to become a billionaire who says he’s worth over 3 Billion, It just doesn’t make sense to me, reports said he was the one who kept calling Forbes pissed off he wasn’t included and bugging them to be put in their mag. I always thought they were a reputable publication who did the math before publishing but that’s clearly not the case.

      • Greatgift says:

        “Mel you’re so damn right. They way he kept bugging Forbes and then they yielded I’m sure without doing due diligence

  11. enike says:

    Forbes embarassed themselves and now suddenly they started digging up things. why they didnt do it before? In wanting to hide their incompetency and lack of research ,they now accuse Kylie
    I am not a Kardashian-Jenner fan, but I think Forbes´ treatment of Kylie is not fair
    I think from this match Kylie will get out clean and Forbes will be a laughing stock

    • Dutch says:

      It’s a combo of Kylie’s company being private and the magazine’s own desire to tap in to the Kardashian/Jenner following. Forbes could only go by the information that was provided to them at the time, and those numbers were puffed up. What’s changed is that Coty is a publicly traded company and their public filings have to be accurate or they face major penalties from the government and a dip in confidence in their brand (read: stock price). Forbes saw the discrepancy in the numbers and set the record straight (and coincidentally got to take another bite out of the K/J apple).

      • enike says:

        Dutch, yes, it can explain it.
        Now Coty confirmed in their May 2020 quarterly financial results that they paid 600 in cash for King Kylie, but still evaluating the fair value and adjustments in their accounting.
        Now I dont know what to think, I mean even if in they will record the value adjustments, the cash wash paid out and fair value was estimated

        so was Coty fooled or they really estimated that 51% is 600 in cash? Now either Kylie´s company is/was that good that time, or Forbes AND Coty were gullible enough to buy into the hype?
        I still dont think any documents were forged (at least not for Coty). But if the Kylie company was worth less, why they (Coty) paid 600 (in cash), surely they investigated it first, its not the first company they are buying
        Edit: as someone said in this thread, its possible Coty went along with the game, to attract investors

      • Dutch says:

        Part of any corporate transaction of retail products involves a certain amount of projection of future revenue. So Coty could explain the $600 million purchase price as $200 million of actual value with $400 million in future value off projected sales of $1.5 billion over 10 years.

    • Anon says:

      “Not fair”? Not fair? Jesus wept.

      @Dutch, the calculation of future revenue must be based on real current revenue, and it seems the Kardashians fuddled the expected income by for and a half times. The validation provided by Forbes is what allowed the sale to proceed with such high discrepancy between values, that’s why they bugged the publication until they got their “billionaire certificate”.

  12. Shannon1993 says:

    Nonsense like this is to be expected from the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Forbes, however, should be ashamed of themselves for not doing due diligence and accurate reporting the first time around.

  13. OriginalLala says:

    I mean, the Kardashian-Jenners lie about EVERYTHING. It’s all smoke and mirrors with them, everything to project a certain image of wealth, beauty, and power. So ya, I totally believe they lied and forged documents, totally.

  14. Powermoonchrystal says:

    Forbes took this personally for sure. They obviously have some contempt for the family, but it may be that they are also covering their behinds, if Coty decides to sue. I mean, if they also showed fake numbers to Coty, of course, it is illegal, so would love to see how this story continues to unfold.

    • enike says:

      I dont think they could have lied to Coty (as I firmly believe Coty did their research before buying Kylie Cosmetics, unlike Forbes), the family maybe hyped it only for Forbes and Forbes eat it up without research and now Forbes is angry 🙂

  15. S808 says:

    Forbes should’ve done their due diligence before that cover ran, why deep dive afterwards???

    • JayNay says:

      yeah i agree. it was Forbes who came out with that claim in the first place. didn’t they talk to people to fact-check the statements the Kardashian-Jenners gave them? Like, there would have to be anaylists or industry experts who would be able to give you a sense of whether such a large revenue was realistic or not.
      So yeah, without an explanaition as to why this wasn’t caught earlier, I find this pretty weird.
      (and yes given the state of things it’s a very inconsequential piece of drama)

    • lucy2 says:

      I agree Forbes doesn’t look good here either, and should have been more careful in their fact finding in the beginning, especially if there was something so obvious that they were still latched onto it and investigating months later.

      Although both stories have generated a lot of attention for a magazine – maybe they suspected it was fishy from the start and ran it anyway, knowing they’d get to do a big breaking news on it later if it turned out to be falsified.

      • Jen says:

        If she and her team really went as far as to fake tax returns, I don’t blame Forbes. If they just took her word for it, than it was shoddy reporting.

        But I also think both sides got what they wanted- the Kardashian Jenners got a ton of press out of it but so did Forbes.

      • sneakers says:

        I agree with Jen.

    • Sankay says:

      Forbes did the same with Trump. You’d think they would have learned.

    • BearcatLawyer says:

      Coty should have done its due diligence on Kylie Cosmetics too. It should have been pretty easy for them to demand copies of KC’s shipping invoices and purchase orders, do some rough math, and compare it against their audited financial statementS and IRS tax returns. I am not an accountant, but even I know that $300 million dollars in a single year’s sales would require a LOT of cosmetics to be produced, sold, and shipped. There would also have been warehouse space somewhere that they could have inspected to see the actual inventory and whether it was being shipped to customers.

      I suspect both Coty and PMK/Kylie hyped up the deal to create buzz and make people think the cosmetics were way more desirable than they are. They all get more attention and presumably sales, and Coty likely got more investors or better finance terms from their creditors as a result of adding such an apparently lucrative line to its portfolio. Forbes seems pissed because they got played by talking up Kylie and this deal, and now they are striking back because they look like fools.

      • Anon says:

        “even I know that $300 million dollars in a single year’s sales would require a LOT of cosmetics to be produced, sold, and shipped” Many such companies are used to launder dark money for it is so easy to declare production and sales of products that aren’t even made nor distributed.

  16. Lightpurple says:

    Wondering if Coty is preparing a fraud case

  17. Kathy says:

    This story is the only thing getting me out of bed today.

  18. Justice for all says:

    They and the most of Hollywood does things to promote themselves. Is anyone surprised?! I mean it’s all PR and they pay big money to make themselves to be what they are not. Kardashians, CAA and their two biggest cash cows Pitt and Aniston do it. Had to throw those two into because they are right up there with them selling BS and lies and making money doing it. Sorry but it’s true!

  19. Veronica S. says:

    I thought it was questionable from the start, to be honest. There’s so much competition in the makeup market now that I couldn’t see how the company was anywhere worth that much – and anyone who bought it were fools anyway, considering it was basically Colourpop repackaged and marked up.

    The one to look out for is Coty. If they really overpaid that much for the company, I can see them coming back with a court case.

  20. Ya Boy Stav says:

    It’s alright Kylie, if you leave your $900 mill in the bank and allow the interest to accumulate you’ll be worth a billion one day. 😥

  21. Fleur says:

    I mean, I think it’s pretty bold of them to state they “probably” forged tax returns considering they offered zero proof of that. Whether you like them or dislike them, the article was full of inference but zero proof. The “digging” was all speculations. Lazy and weak journalism. If I was Kris Jenner, I would lawyer up and let them have it .

    • Erinn says:

      Yeah, I have mixed feelings on this. If they did fake it, that 100% needs to be investigated and appropriately handled. But I do questions the motives here, and the vagueness. Coty was also refinancing some debts in 2018, they assumed that buying that 51% of Kylie Cosmetics would turn business around for them.

      And then you have Forbes saying “While we can’t prove that those documents were fake (though it’s likely), it’s clear that Kylie’s camp has been lying.” which seems like a really weird thing to include. If your argument revolves around the documents being fake, but you can’t prove they were, that seems a little sketchy.

      I mean, I think Coty overpaid. And I don’t know the inner legal workings of this kind of thing, but there’s a certain amount of responsibility that should rest with them. Surely they’re able to look into this kind of thing prior to purchase without having to rely on a dumb Forbes list?

      • Cine Johnson says:

        Only they can release the transcripts from the IRS. So absent a lawsuit their actual taxable income is shielded. They can produce whatever they want to a magazine who is publishing a magazine story. There is no slander or libel. I imagine Coty did it’s due diligence. This is really all about her public standing as a billionaire.

  22. Prairiegirl says:

    Forged tax returns? Not a good look, but then there’s nothing real about these people.

  23. Lizzie says:

    One thing this family understands is how to make money off of social media.
    Forbes doesn’t have a great record here, first they admit Trump duped them and now the Jenner’s.

  24. kif says:

    now really is the time to resurrect that go-fund me to make kylie an authentic billionaire

  25. Not susan says:

    Didn’t they also report that Kylie isn’t the sole owner and Kris has a share; doesn’t that conflict with her “self made” theme? Not that people really bought that! Per the article:

    “For years, the Jenners insisted that all of those profits went directly to Kylie because she owned the business outright. But Coty’s purchase agreement specifically lists a “KMJ 2018 Irrevocable Trust,” controlled by Kristen M. Jenner, as owning a profit interest in Kylie Cosmetics. Upon the sale, the document says the trust would get a capital, or ownership, interest in the company. The Jenners initially told Forbes that the trust holds money Kylie Jenner earned before she turned 18 and that Kylie is its beneficiary. But the trust appears to have been created well after Kylie turned 18, and the Jenners declined to offer any proof to back up their claims. Given the lack of clarity—and the history of lies—we’re erring on the side of caution and assuming that the trust belongs to Kris Jenner. That means Kylie Jenner owns an estimated 44.1% of Kylie Cosmetics, rather than 49%”

  26. M says:

    Valuations expert here. There is no way that the Coty deal was made using falsified tax records (or any other kind of tax records). The Jenners would have had to present audited financial statements going back several years. No CPA would ever risk falsifying such documents lest they get disbarred, sued by Coty and investigated by the financial authorities. The amount paid by Coty was never disclosed. My understanding is that it was Forbes who estimated the sale at 600 M$ based on their own flawed valuation of 1200 M$ (so 50%).

    On the other hand, I totally believe the Kardashians lied to Forbes to get that cover. It was a vanity project and nothing more. Now Forbes have egg on their face (but no one is really surprised as they haven’t been relevant ever since they put Trump on the cover) and the Kardashians don’t really care since their fans have the memory of goldfish (how’s Kim’s studying for the bar going?).

    All in all, the only real lesson to take from this is that all of these lists all a hot steaming pile of s**t and that the Kardashians are impervious to the truth (they use it for publicity then move on to the next scheme).

    • Elizabeth says:

      Valuations expert, Coty issued a statement at the time saying “Under the terms of the agreement, Coty will acquire a 51% ownership in the partnership for $600M.“ So yes the amount was disclosed openly and the statement is available on their website with a simple Google search. Obviously this means Coty valued Kylie’s company at over $1 billion. Of course they could have over-valued the company / her social influence, and/or her ownership was maybe not 100% before, but the info on how much Coty paid is and has always been public.

      • Elizabeth says:

        I despise that entire self-centered, materialistic, lying, exploitative, cringeworthy, Black culture-appropriating, mind-numbing, violent family, but Forbes is not making sense. They don’t have any real proof. Show us the fraudulent tax refunds if they exist…

      • Bucky says:

        Elizabeth… Forbes isn’t suggesting that falsified taxes were filed with the IRS. They are saying that the returns were doctored for the sake of the article.

        If a company screws around with their numbers for tax purposes, they tend to do so to undervalue the company.

        This is Trump’s model. Undervalue the company to the IRS to decrease (or eliminate) taxes owed. Inflate or outright lie about the value to the media to make the company look more successful.

        Is Kris Jenner desperate enough to follow Donald Trump’s example? Probably.

      • Anon says:

        Kris Jenner was in business with Trump before, I bet she learned a lot during that time… maybe she did just what Trump does to atract investors: by presenting rosy returns with fake/doctored information and calling them suckers afterwards.

    • Susan says:

      The claim isn’t that the returns and financial statements provided to Coty were falsified though. I understood the Forbes article to be that the Jenners provided falsified documents to the press, in some sort of effort to juice their self importance and, possibly, create fake interest in their product. Perhaps Coty turned a blind eye to it because it had no bearing on the sale and because it made the product seem more in demand which in turn increases demand with easily influenced.

  27. AnnaKist says:

    They lied? I’m shocked. 🙄
    I rang my mate when I saw this article pop up, as my daughter had told me about it on the weekend. My mate is a barrister, who previously worked as a corporate lawyer for one of Australia’s largest and most prestigious law firms. After mocking me for even hinting at a tiny interest in these women, he said he wished all this had happened here. He said he’d have loved to represent Coty to break the sale contract, have their purchase money returned and then sued KC for the con. My word, not his. He spoke Legalese, which is beyond me.

    • Meg says:

      Honestly couldn’t that still happen? Lying to shareholders, fraud- isnt that what this is?

    • Meg says:

      Honestly couldn’t that still happen? Lying to shareholders, fraud- isnt that what this is?

    • enike says:

      I am really shocked how many people think they gave Coty the “false documents” also. Forbes is doing some damage control – to little, to late. But evidently most people think multimillion acquisitions are done on the basis of “they said”, they “gave us documents”. And we didnt think of researching it
      False documents may be good for Forbes, not for that big of a business deal.
      I wonder why Forbes still has credibility after they now admitted they didnt do any research the first time and dont take journalism seriously.

  28. Meg says:

    Dont you think this is more Forbes wanting people to know, if you lie to us we’ll find out and report it. We want our readers to trust us so we have to speak up on false info in previous issues.
    Love their shade towards super market tabloids as if they didn’t make their name off those tabloids & mens rights website TMZ -theyre acting like theyre above their station.
    Her face is nearly 100% fake so why wouldn’t her $ be?
    Totally shocked kris kardashian faked documents to lie about her family, faking tax documents lying about your wealth, who does that sound like?
    Because their real wealth isnt enough, they think theyre never enough its the reason for all the plastic surgery and effort to come across as more wealthy than they are-never enough

  29. Hmmt says:

    She’s worth THAT much money but still can’t capitalize the letter I.

  30. Krystina says:

    *shrugs*

    I lay this one at the feet of Forbes. They could have done the work in the first place to figure out the numbers, but didn’t bother. They hyped up the original “Kylie is a Billiaonaire!” article, and then had a temper tantrum when they realized they didn’t do their homework.

    Just my two cents.

  31. Paigeishere says:

    Yes, billionaire businesswomen always respond to fraud allegations with “lol” and a complete lack of punctuation.

  32. Queen Meghan’s Hand says:

    I see a lot of people believing it’s not possible for the Kardashian-Jenners to present false documents to Coty.
    Um: The wealthy lie and falsify documents all. The. Time. They create PR campaigns to fool gullible investors that their companies are solvent. Trump followed a playbook and it’s a playbook that many wealthy people follow. He didn’t write it. Look at all Silicon Valley companies valued at billionaires of dollars but no profit; look at Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos; look at Twitter; look at Uber. This is why billionaires are so immoral because it’s simply not possible to generate that amount of money without theft and lying.

    • JustBe says:

      This!
      And why is it assumed that anything that they say, documented or posted to IG or wherever is true?
      The family manipulated Forbes in order to increase their chances of the cosmetics ’empire’ being bought out. It’s in Coty’s best interest to continue with the gaslighting in order to not harm their long-term profits. All of this is a shell game with the Kardashians gaslighting the public and these companies gaslighting shareholders and venture capitalist firms. If people only knew how often CEOs and boards of directors lie about the profitability or operations of a company in order to get more money or just favorable loan rates. At that level for a lot of companies trying to go public or be seen as profitable, it is just a sophisticated shell game. Uber has never turned a profit, just like most companies exploiting the ‘gig’ economy, but billions have been poured into these companies.

      • Queen Meghan's Hand says:

        THIS!!:
        “The family manipulated Forbes in order to increase their chances of the cosmetics ‘empire’ being bought out. It’s in Coty’s best interest to continue with the gaslighting in order to not harm their long-term profits.”

        Before the 2016 election, all of tech press was this. PR puff pieces disguised as journalism to help overvalue Silicon Valley/Alley (that’s NYC) companies (Now, tech journos have to give a little lip service towards surveillance and SV complicity in destroying our electoral systems).

        Even after all of the grift and theft taking place before our American eyes, I am surprised that people’s first instinct is to not assume that wealthy people, including the ones that run “bIlLiOn-dOllLaR” companies, lie to acquire money. No person, no company becomes a billionaire through hard work. One becomes a billionaire through crude exploitation of the working class (literally meaning people who must work for their money) or lying or both.

        Kylie Cosmetics is no different than WeWork (my gosh what a sham that was). Their valuations were based on lies which means that investors need to perpetuate the lies in order to cash out which means they need to convince the public to believe the lie to keep the stock price up. That’s why Forbes still estimates Kylie’s net worth as $900M. She SO OBVIOUSLY does not have net assets totaling that amount, but Forbes did but Elizabeth Holmes on the cover. It is part of their bottom line to support these grifters.

    • sneakers says:

      “it’s simply not possible to generate that amount of money without theft and lying.”

      – Actually, so untrue in the age of mega unicorn companies.

  33. Jules says:

    Not surprised by any of this. I don’t believe she’s running her company, and the self-made bit was always a joke. This family is built on lies and manipulation. I used to feel sorry for Kyle and Kendall for being brought up on TV so young, exploited. But now they are young adults and can make their own decisions. Kylie is a horrible role model for anyone, plastic, shallow and fake.

  34. adastraperaspera says:

    The Jenner/Kardashian/West family is just like the Trump/Kushner’s. Pretend rich people. They’re in bed with mafia and are basically just money-laundering facades. Of course they do profit themselves–and it’s all dirty money made from drugs, human trafficking and other organized crime.

  35. Case says:

    Meh. This is on Forbes, not Kylie. They should’ve done their due diligence. That’s their job.

  36. Oliviajoy1995 says:

    “Kylie is only worth a little less than $900 million.”
    That makes me feel so much better. Lol.
    She’s practically poverty level now.
    (eyeroll)
    You know Kanye is stoked. He was a bitter betty when she made the Forbes list before him.

  37. Jay says:

    Ok great, now I know Kylie is merely a near billionaire, awesome, can they PLEASE get into Trump’s financials now?

    I think that revealing the extent of his graft and the truth behind his empty claims of business success will be more effective than all of his horrifying behaviour at getting him out of that White House.

    • Tosca says:

      Yes, exactly. I saw a documentary that mentioned Trump repeatedly calling Forbes and hounding them to put him on the “richest in America” list. Then, his dubious claims to wealth were never fact-checked.

  38. LoonaticCap says:

    I laughed so hard when I read the article the other day. Man they are PISSED! 😂😂 Well she’s still the richest sister so I’m not feeling sorry for her, and I think she lied and knew about it. Their obsession with fame makes this totally believable.

  39. sassafras says:

    I think Forbes did their due diligence the first time. That’s what this article is saying. That the Jenners invited them into the offices and provided them a stack of papers, including the “forged” tax returns.

    For Forbes to do anything more at that point… Frankly, there wasn’t much they could do while Kylie Cosmetics was privately held. But when they saw the Coty documents, the reporters smelled something fishy. Because the Jenners provided Coty the real numbers because they’re evil not stupid. Likewise, I’m assuming that the Jenners provided the US Government the smaller (and correct) tax returns because they’re evil not stupid.

    And Forbes wouldn’t have gone out on this limb without the records to prove it. Kris’s lawyer letter is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Bring on a lawsuit Kris, and the Forbes lawyers would love to play discovery with your financials.

  40. AppleTartin says:

    Just a layperson’s perspective but the Ulta by me for years had piles and piles of her makeup and it never moved. It was always stockpiled in the front. Sure, the first few years she was the trendy makeup. But like anything people get bored and realized they can get the same makeup with Colourpop and moved on. Coty got hosed.

  41. boobra says:

    duh🙄

  42. Mel says:

    This is all PMK, I’m sorry but Kylie isn’t smart enough to put this kind of thing together, it’s all Kris who is the brains behind all the daughters. Who actually is buying these Lipkits? I’ve never seen anyone using them.

  43. coffeeisgood says:

    Kim leaked this because Kylie surpassed her in insta follwers and also so Kayne can be in the billionaire in the fam. Kim is bitter Kylie edged her out as Kris’ favorite child.

    • Jules says:

      hope the cameras were rolling because this drama will fill up a whole other season.

  44. coffeeisgood says:

    Uber, Lyft, WeWork, all these start up companies were hyped up to be worth “billions” then when they IPO’d everyone saw the real numbers and knew the truth. Kylie Cosmetics is no different. I worked at a ‘unicorn status billion dollar valued’ start up, and I can tell you so many of these young companies that grew overnight financial records are probably a mess. Forbes should be well aware of this. They clearly wanted Kylie to sell covers cause no one would have cared about that issue if she wasn’t on the front. Coming back and retracting that without actual physical proof is tacky.

  45. Queen Meghan's Hand says:

    I’m really enjoying digging into this story because it is everything wrong with America right now (unregulated capitalism, income inequality, Silicon Valley, the exploitation of black culture, a white woman, Kylie, stealing black women’s faces, Blac Chyna, Beyonce, et al.) without gruesome imagery of violence against black people.

  46. Queen Meghan's Hand says:

    I’m really enjoying digging into this story because it is everything wrong with America right now (unregulated capitalism, income inequality, Silicon Valley, the exploitation of black culture, a white women, Kylie and Khloe, stealing black women’s faces, Blac Chyna, Malika Huq, et al.) without the gruesome accounts of violence against black people. So excuse me, because this rant is my form of self-care.

    So: Kylie Jenner is not worth $900 million dollars. From the article:
    “More than a third of that is the estimated $340 million in post-tax cash she would have pocketed from selling a majority of her company. The rest is made up of revised earnings based on her business’ smaller size and a more conservative estimate of its profitability, plus the value of her remaining share of Kylie Cosmetics—which is not only smaller than the Jenners led us to believe but is also worth less now than it was when the deal was announced in November, given the economic effects of the coronavirus.”

    Because she really did sell a stake of her company to Coty, let’s assume the $340M is real. That’s $560M remaining which is the “estimated profitability” of Kylie Cosmetics plus the “value of her remaining share.”
    This $560M does not make any sense. Just a few paragraphs before, the article states that the company’s skin care line is *on track* to make $25M in SALES. Not revenue, sales. Now, subtract the operating costs, where does that leave revenue for 2020? And what about the cosmetics like lip kits?
    Let’s jump back a year to 2019: Kylie Cosmetics (allegedly) made revenues of $177M. Another year: in 2018 the company (allegedly) made $125M in revenues.
    Revenue is not the same as profit.

    From the article: “But Coty’s filings indicate that Kylie’s profits are likely lower than we figured, since her Ebitda margin—which factors in some, but not all, of her expenses—is only around 25%.”

    So according to this figure, Kylie Cosmetics profits are $75M for the years 2019 and 2018 combined. Again from the article, Kylie’s share of Kylie Cosmetics is 44.1%. So of those profits, she’s seeing about $31M. $31M for the years 2019 and 2018 combined.

    It is pretty reasonable to assume that Kylie Cosmetics has never breached over $200M in revenue in 2016 and 2017. And while profit margins are not static especially for new companies, let’s assume that her margin was always 25%. That means that Kylie Cosmetics never could have made much more than $25M in profit in years 2016 and 2017 which means that Kylie collected less than half of that.

    Yes, companies themselves are assets but what is really the “estimated profitability” of a company that has profited ~$75M in the last two years. WHat is really the value of a 44.1% stake of a cosmetics company that produces $75M in profits over the last two years? $560M?!

    Forbes really wants us to believe Kylie Jenner’s 44.1% of Kylie Cosmetics totals out to $560M. While this article provides some tantalizing details into how the ultra-wealthy grift, it is still Forbes. It is simply not possible for Kylie Jenner to have a net worth close to $900M. Net Worth is Total Assets minus Liabilities. The majority of her wealth comes from that Coty sale. I have no idea what her overhead is (mortgages, cars, security, house staff, nannies, private air travel, etc) but it is in the low millions. We also don’t know of any loans she may have taken out to finance her lifestyle and start the company before the sale.

    All that to say: she is a multi-millionaire but not anywhere close to a billionaire. Forbes is still lying, still over-inflating wealthy people’s perceived net worth to help them and the companies associate with them acquire more capital.

    • Jules says:

      Awesome! Well done. Your first and last paragraph above perfectly sum things up for me too. The age of celebrity worship is over, they truly are showing how useless and tone-deaf they are. And we all know that the K-J Klan lead the pack.

    • Mtec says:

      @Queen Meghan’s Hand
      I’m a day late but I hope you see this… that was a great analysis, and I really think you should publish it in a platform like Medium and tweet it at Forbes, the Jenners and the like, ‘cause not only do u expose both lol, but you actually accomplished making numbers interesting lol at least to me, and I feel like everyone should read this and learn, cause I did.

      Also “ So excuse me, because this rant is my form of self-care.” LOL amazing, gonna steal it sorry 😆

      • Queen Meghan’s Hand says:

        Thank you! I am expanding it with some revisions and more context of the cosmetics industry. Because I won’t let this go.
        The Kardashian-Jenners make their money exploiting the beauty and fashion of Black women. Their act of “racing” themselves is an exercise in colorism which is a vicious strain of white supremacy. And they’re all giving their daughters traction alopecia by pulling their hair too tight (Khloe!).

  47. Louise says:

    Dear QMR: You win The Everything today. I am a bookkeeper (that will never not be a weird word to type). I consider myself to be a generally good writer, yet still have a difficult time effectively explaining math/numbers in English – just…well done.

  48. msd says:

    I’d be happy if the whole Kardashian family faded into obscurity. However, Forbes ‘rich lists’ lists are unreliable PR garbage. There’s something icky about them investigating a young woman when they don’t dig deep on everyone else included on their lists.