I remember watching some kind of interview or profile of Kris Jenner and learning that she really wasn’t any kind of manager/money-smart person until her first divorce. When she left Robert Kardashian Sr. for Caitlyn Jenner, she didn’t walk away with a lot of money. Part of that was… Robert was a lawyer and while he was always going to take care of his kids financially, he was pissed off at Kris and he ensured that she wasn’t going to live large post-divorce. Kris basically taught herself how to be a manager and how to take care of the finances when she married Caitlyn. Kris spoke about all of this and more with WSJ. Magazine. Some highlights:
A momager for decades: While Jenner, 65, acknowledges that this is “definitely a great stage in my life,” she will also remind you that she’s been “CEO of my family for a very, very long time,” and “all the experience I’ve had over 30 years of being a full-time businesswoman has led me to this very spot.”
She never paid the bills with Robert: Kris, 65, tells the publication that she “never paid a bill” while married to the late Robert Kardashian, who died in 2003, weeks after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. During her decades-long marriage to Kardashian, Jenner says her husband controlled all the money and it wasn’t until their divorce that she began to figure out the financials for herself.
Figuring out finances: “One day, my friend, Shelli Azoff, said to me when I was going through my divorce [from Robert], ‘How much is your gardener?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ And she said, ‘You don’t know?’ That was the turning point for me: I was embarrassed that I didn’t know. I woke up one day to responsibilities that I hadn’t had the day before. And I needed to figure it out. And the good news is, I pay attention… I’m a quick study and I knew I had to get it together. I felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment to be able to figure it all out and pay my own bills and make my own money and do my own taxes. And there were times when I didn’t have a lot of money, but I was very organized.”
She’s really interested in managing and finance now: “I’m interested in different ways that people make money—and in what’s happening around the world. And I’m interested in different businesses and how they evolve and how they become successful. I just enjoy the business world.”
[From WSJ. Magazine & People]
Okay, I have some stuff to say! While I think Kris Jenner is a stage-mother on steroids who sees her children as her own monetary assets, I ALSO think Kris gets a raw deal because she’s a woman and because she’s running a family business focusing mainly on her daughters and female-centric branding. She literally made everyone in her family into a multi-millionaire celebrity. She figured out a new paradigm for reality programming and social media branding and she’s helped shepherd her daughters’ now-billion-dollar empires. If Kris was a father managing a group of successful sons, she would be on the cover of Forbes every dang month. Plus, I appreciate the fact that Kris openly talks about money and building a business and how she figured it out along the way because guess what? That encourages women to take the lead in their own finances and begin to think strategically about their ability to build a business, etc. Kris can be deeply problematic (and she is) and she can also be a really smart businesswoman encouraging women to take control.
Cover courtesy of WSJ. Magazine, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
There’s a reason why black twitter says the devil works hard but Kris Jenner works harder. I’m not mad at women getting theirs at all.
That being said, as a black woman, it grinds my gears that the things that the world has considered ‘vulgar’ when we were the cultural blueprint (from the longer nails to the cornrolls, to just even physical bodies), it’s all good when these culture vultures get in on it.
PREACH!!!
p.s. those sunglasses were a really bad choice for her face.
God, I love those glasses on her (eek)
My dad gave me advice years ago about money and working. He told me to always manage my money and if I married, the family money. This way, you know where it goes and how to save. He told me to always save and I saved 25% of my income before taxes to put in my retirement fund.
I gave my kids the same advice.
When I got my great job with the gov, my dad also told me to never quit. He said I’d be a better wife if I worked, and I’d keep my independence if anything went wrong when I married. I followed his advice and when my hubby died at a young age, I wasn’t lost financially. Now I have a great retirement and never have to worry about money.
Fine. I’ll admit it. Out of each and every Kardashian, she has always been my favorite because of the aforementioned. The only time in my life I could’ve ever said, “I have no idea how much my gardener gets paid,” was when I was a child, and dad paid a guy to cut the grass every week. That being said, I have greater admiration for penniless foreigners moving to America who educate themselves, start businesses and build families, live rich and rewarding lives, create longevity and history. They are far more than I could ever be, and certainly more than Kris could even imagine. That would require the kind of depth money can’t buy.
Back when the show focused on this sort of career-building, I found all that much more interesting than the contrived drama. They used to really take a lot of time to talk about balancing schedules and branching out into different branding opportunities. I used to see it as a subliminal feminist show! Not anymore
I didn’t realize what the show had lost until you said this. Its very true. Even the spin-offs were about moving to a geographic area to establish a store, etc. Now its all babies, baby daddies, and plastic surgery.
She is the devil but she is a really smart business woman.
I don’t know. Let’s remember $ex sells and that’s how this family got it’s start. Then Ryan Seacrest came along and offered them a show at a time when reality tv was hot. They lied to their fans about their faces and bodies in order to get young girls to buy their products. Where in all this is there a “good business woman” ? It’s deceiving and taking advantage of young impressionable girls. If Kris was really a good “business woman” she would have found a way to make her son rich too lol.
While it’s true that their “fame” only came with Kim’s tape, it’s not where the family got their start.
Kris was responsible for monetizing and “branding” Caitlyn waaaay back. She was responsible for Caitlyn’s career as a motivational speaker and they both made quite a bit of money as fitness guru’s as well.
I hate moral complexities. Why can’t awful people just be cartoonishly bad? I guess we do have to respect her for all the reasons listed above. And yet … their brand doesn’t encourage women to behave like businesswomen. It relies on awful female stereotypes, drama and cattiness, horrifying surgical procedures and yes cultural appropriation. So ultimately what does her work do to improve the lives of women? What will be the legacy of her work? Ugh.
Why is it her responsibility to improve the lives of women? How does what any woman does improve the lives of women unless they are purposely in a career that is meant to do that?
It’s called feminism.
Nicdix- I suspect you’re just trolling but in case you really are interested, I’ll respond. Most of us simply by making life decisions on our own terms – about school, work, family etc – are contributing to a society where more people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups are empowered to do so. When a high profile woman makes savvy business decisions it helps to normalize women as savvy business people. But if those decisions are based on perpetuating both gender and cultural stereotypes, much of the positive benefit is outweighed by the negative.
Aw NicDix “why can’t I just be evil *pout*”
Listen the KarJenners have had their share of shady business — don’t forget their exploitative credit card scheme that got shut down or their weight loss teas that are just diuretics or how they wouldn’t label ads on their social media. Mmm. They’re not even ethical business people.
I don’t think anyone argues with her talent for finding ways to monetize everything she comes into contact with – she’s filling a void. The public bears the responsibility for being obsessed with these empty head culture vultures.
Having said that, she’s still a grasping, soulless, spider who will sell the lives of anyone who comes into the orbit of her web and she doesn’t care about the cost to them at all. I feel sorry for all the grandchildren – especially the girls, as it is easy to see that they are already being groomed to be self hating, blank stare paper dolls. It’s gross and people need to turn this garbage off.
“he was pissed off at Kris and he ensured that she wasn’t going to live large post-divorce.“
I respect any woman who comes out of a divorce where her spouse controlled the finances and builds a way herself back because it is hard. I think teaching young girls the importance of and how to become financially independent even within (or especially within) a relationship would be of such a benefit to society.
“How much is your gardener?” How relatable! Very similar to when my husband left me with no money (completely out of the blue and I never saw him again) but had to figure out how to buy food and it took years to recover from.
I think it’s always been clear that Kris was marrying for money so she could sit down and chill (and have a gardner and hang out with celebrities). And her mother has had her own store for decades.
They have made it to extreme financial wealth but they were already starting from a pretty well off place.
Not really surprising considering she met and dated him very, very young. Like before she was twenty. It’s a common story foe lots of women of that era who were taught to marry well so a man could take care of them. It’s no different then women coming out of divorce and not knowing credit card balances or about the mortgage.
Least problematic part of her story.
Neither of these responses focus on what I actually said. She thinks this makes her relatable or aspirational. It does not. This is nowhere near the experience of most women going through a divorce they did not want.
“….there were times when I didn’t have a lot of money.”
Just enough for a gardener. And an estate large enough to need a gardener.
This makes me inordinately mad. “Not a lot of money” is not what I think of when I think about people who have paid domestic help. And it’s not like she said “lawn boy,” or “kid who cuts my grass,” she said “gardener” which means a whole garden that needs tending, which means a large enough property to include a garden so large you can’t do it on your own, which likely means a large home on said property in a good neighborhood where things like how well maintained your garden is is something that matters. Which means money. It means you have money!
I’m the crazy person who really likes Kris Jenner. Maybe not the best mother, but an incredible business person who’s made a fortune for herself and every person in her family (maybe not Rob, but she’s certainly tried and he seems to be completely adverse to work), looks great for her age, and seems to have a large group of close friends that she’s had for decades.
I like that she’s not shy about enjoying business and while it’s certainly not hard physical labour, it’s a tough business to be in and she works hard at it. She’s continued to expand the family brand for years. They’ve had some misfires along the way, but she knew when to cut the losses and pivot into something new. The ones that have landed have been massive financial successes.
I like her overall message that women need to know about their own finances. My grandmother who lived to 94 instilled a similar but more empowering message in me, that a woman needs to have her own money.
When I decided to learn about money (and women and money), I was surprised to read (over and over) how many women are living some version of this reality. Maybe not on the level of “How much is your gardner?” But still on the level of “How much is your mortgage/ rent? How much are utilities? How much does it cost to get to and from work each month? What do you have leftover for savings and fun?” Those women are in more challenging/precarious financial positions than Kris was. It’s scary but it can also be a very powerful starting place. When women start studying money and investing, we are usually BETTER at it than men.
My grandmother is a woman who is really good with money (and had to be because her husband wasn’t so skilled in that arena and she had kids to care for) and she loves being asked to share her wisdom because she worked hard to achieve what she has.
Kris Jenner is actually a good example to me of the limitations of ethical power grabbing under capitalism. Like, yeah, she’s a brilliant manager, but she exploited a lot from her family to get there. So maybe the problem isn’t really “Kris is given a lot of shit as a woman that men don’t get” (which is true, but…) and more like “celebrity financial success under the American capitalist model is almost always inherently exploitative.” Your ~girl power~ can only go so far if it’s modeled under the same methods of a system that built itself off the backs of minorities and women in the first place.
**Standing Ovation to this comment**
+1
All of this!
Yes she made them all multi millionaires, but at what cost?
Half of her children have distorted their faces and bodies beyond recognition with plastic surgery. The younger ones were pulled out of school to be on a reality show. They’ve packaged and sold every family moment for mass consumption. None of them seem to have happy or fulfilling lives. They seem deeply spoiled and completely inconsiderate/unaware of others.