Forbes Revokes Kylie Jenner’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Title—Says She Lied

For two consecutive years, Forbes’ crowning of Kylie Jenner as the “youngest self-made billionaire” had been heavily disputed, with many arguing that her wealthy background had been the reason for her success. The disagreement seems to nearly be unanimous now, as the magazine has just renounced the title.
In a lengthy exposé, Forbes magazine cited a report that stated Kylie Jenner and her “momager” Kris Jenner had inflated her net worth and how much her makeup brand, Kylie Cosmetics, was making.
Forbes said the Kardashian-Jenner family had taken “unusual lengths” to earn her the title of “youngest self-made billionaire,” when her business was instead “significantly smaller, and less profitable, than the family has spent years leading the cosmetics industry and media outlets, including Forbes, to believe.”
Kris and Kylie Jenner had allegedly fed forged draft tax returns to Forbes with spiked figures so the 22-year-old could land a cover on the money magazine, the publication stated.
Its new appraisal puts Kylie Jenner at a net worth of US$900 million, removing her from Forbes’ ‘World Billionaire’ list.
Forbes also said it had discussed with “a handful of analysts and industry experts” who thought Jenner’s overall earnings of US$307 million within a single year in 2016 were “implausible.” They surmised that a “more reasonable estimate” would be US$41 million, possibly placing her in the 59th spot of Forbes’s 2017 Celebrity 100 list, as opposed to her original ranking of second place after Taylor Swift.
The documents shown to Forbes by the Jenners claimed that Kylie Cosmetics had made US$330 million in 2017 and US$360 million in 2018. However, documentation from beauty giant Coty stated that Kylie Cosmetics only earned US$125 million in 2018.
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“While we can’t prove that those documents were fake (though it’s likely), it’s clear that Kylie’s camp has been lying,” Forbes elaborated.
An insider close to the Kardashian-Jenners told the New York Post that the supposed “PR stunt” to sculpt Jenner as a “business mogul” was known to the beauty industry. “Everybody in the beauty branding business knew Kylie’s net worth was inflated,” they detailed.
The source also reasoned that Jenner had done what she did because the family is motivated by “sibling rivalry.”
Jenner has refuted the accusations, taking to Twitter to declare, “I thought this was a reputable site. All I see are a number of inaccurate statements and unproven assumptions.”
The realitystar further defended that she had “never asked for any title or tried to lie my way there EVER.”

[via Page Six, cover image via Kathy Hutchins / Shutterstock.com]